1509 East Superior Street
Duluth, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Oliver G. Traphagen House

Statement of Significance:

Oliver G. Traphagen was born in Tarry Town, New York, on 3 September 1854, at an early age his parents moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota where he was brought up and received early education. He moved to Duluth in the early 1880s and, along with his brothers George and Walter, was employed as a carpenter. His career quickly developed from carpenter to contractor to architect, and between 1885-88 went into a partnership to form the firm of Wirth and Traphagen. Although the partnership was brief, Traphagen was able to announce in 1890 that his "work in Duluth includes twenty or more of the best business blocks also fifty or more residences".

By 1890 Oliver Traphagen had been acknowledged as one of Duluth's leading architects. Duluth's businessmen and financiers demonstrated their confidence in his work by asking him to design the Board of Trade Building and the First National Bank Building. In 1888, the city fathers called upon him to design the new City Hall and Jail at Second Avenue East and Superior Street.

In 1890 Traphagen joined in partnership with Francis W. Fitzpatrick to form the firm of Traphagen and Fitzpatrick. For the short period of six years this partnership flourished and earned the partners the title of "Representative Architects of Duluth". This prolific architectural office designed such important and substantial buildings in Duluth as First Presbyterian Church, the new Board of Trade, Hardy School, and the Lyceum Theatre (no longer extant, but considered the finest work of the firm). Many large residences and townhouses were also the product of their work, among them the Mesaba Block, the Phoenix Block, Munger Terrace and O.G, Traphagen 's own residence. Many designs of the firm echoed the stylish vogues of the eighties and nineties, but those listed above went beyond the ordinary to express a distinctive and unusual vigor and power of expression.

In 1896 the partnership ended, and Fitzpatrick went on to become a well-known authority on fireproof construction techniques and has been called the "father of the fire prevention movement in the United States". Traphagen remained in Duluth for nearly a year following the split and continued to practice architecture independently. However, in 1897, due to illness of one of his children, he moved his family to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he immediately resumed his practice. Here he designed several substantial hotel and residences, among them the Moana (Waikiki's first hotel), the Hawaiian Hotel, and the mammoth James B. Castle Residence on Waikiki Beach.

In 1906 illness again struck the Traphagen family with the contraction of malaria by Traphagen's son Wilfred. Thus, the family moved to San Francisco (where Traphagen retired in 1907 after designing only one building. He died in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco, on 21 October 1932.

Oliver G. Traphagen's residence, later named "Redstone", remains as a testament to the impact of this architect, who along with his partner Francis W. Fitzpatrick established a reputation for the design of many of Duluth's landmark structures. This reputation lasted into the mid twentieth century and earned for them the title of "Representative Architects of Duluth".