Architecture Around the World.........Chautauqua, NY - Table of Contents

The Angelica-Chautauqua Connection
By Ed Evans

Excerpt from
Hidden Treasure: The Chautauqua Commission of Buffalo's E.B. Green
By Ed Evans
Published 2005.
Available through the
Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Museum Shop and the Chautauqua Book Store

New York State Senator Frank Wayland Higgins knew E.B. Green was capable and Higgins knew he could get E.B. Green's attention that Chautauqua was a place worth being involved with.  Sen. Higgins was one of E.B. Green's clients.
           
The Higgins family had commissioned Green and Wicks for two projects in recent years.  In the late 1890's then-Senator Higgins had Green and Wicks design his estate in Olean.  By the turn of the century Higgins sister, Clara Smith, had commissioned Green and Wicks for the design of the Angelica Free Library in Angelica, N.Y., about 25 miles from Olean. 

The handling of these two projects for the Higgins family, in addition to the other work of Green's that Higgins knew of would have left Higgins quite confident in Green's abilities as an efficient, can-do architect.
           
In a peculiar twist of timing, the matter might have been helped along by the voters of New York State who knew little or nothing of the behind the scenes matters of architecture at very out of the way Chautauqua.  In November 1904 then-Lt. Gov. Frank Higgins was elected Governor of the State of New York in an upset election. In the twinkling of an election E.B. Green had become the Governor's Architect. 

If Governor Higgins asked E.B. Green to come to Chautauqua to look at a project and consider a commission, Green would not have declined.


Photos © 2005 By Ed Evans

Page by Chuck LaChiusa
| ...Home Page ...| ..Buffalo Architecture Index...| ..Buffalo History Index... .|....E-Mail ...| ..

web site consulting by ingenious, inc.