Bruce Goff

One of his earliest designs that was actually built was a house at 1732 South Yorktown Avenue in Tulsa's Yorktown Historical District; another was the 1920 McGregor House, at 1401 South Quaker Street in what is now known as the Cherry Street District.

Romance blossomed quickly and the two were married in 1903 at the home of her parents in Ellis, Kansas.

Bruce Alonzo Goff (June 8, 1904 – August 4, 1982) was an American architect, distinguished by his organic, eclectic, and often flamboyant designs for houses and other buildings in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

Soon after marriage, the couple moved to the farm town of Alton, Kansas, where their son, Bruce, was born on June 8, 1904.

Life was very difficult for the Goffs in Alton, so they moved south to what would become Tulsa, Oklahoma, (but was then Indian Territory).

At the end of the first summer, they moved to Henrietta, where Bruce's sister was born in 1906.

Then they moved to Skiatook and Hominy, where he saw the Indians in ceremonial dress, and was very impressed with their patterns and color.

He started school in Skiatook, where he was fascinated by a picture of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, his first real exposure to architecture other than frontier structures.

Later, after moving to Hominy, he began drawing fanciful pictures of such buildings on wrapping paper.

Goff's family decided in 1913 to relocate to Denver, Colorado, where the father expected that his fortunes would change for the better.

First, Corliss went ahead of the mother and children who stayed with her relatives in Ellis, Kansas.

He bought a watch shop and opened for business.

Meanwhile Bruce, displaying the talent of an artistic prodigy, learned to paint from nature.

At the end of the summer of 1913, Corliss sent for the family to rejoin him in Denver.

The economy did not favor his efforts, and Bruce later remembered going to bed hungry many nights, because his father could not afford enough food for the family.

After a year and a half of constant struggle, Corliss realized that his fortunes were not going to change there.

Goff's parents decided to move back to Tulsa in 1915.

Corliss had given up on the watchmaking business and became a grocery equipment salesman.

Bruce was largely self-educated and displayed a great talent for drawing.

He enrolled in the sixth grade at Lincoln Elementary School, where his first art teacher, a Miss Brown, strongly supported his individualistic artistic expression.

His father apprenticed him at age 12 to the Tulsa architectural firm of Rush, Endacott and Rush.

Goff's employers were impressed with his talent; they soon gave him responsibility for designing houses and small commercial projects.

Goff designed the Tulsa Club Building, downtown Tulsa's historic landmark, in 1927.

Goff was made a firm partner in 1930.

He and his high-school art teacher Adah Robinson are co-credited with the design of Tulsa's Boston Avenue Methodist Church, one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the United States.

He designed several Chicago-area residences and went to work for the manufacturer of "Vitrolite", an architectural sheet glass introduced during the 1930s.

In 1934 Goff moved to Chicago and began teaching part-time at the Academy of Fine Arts.

In March 1942, three months after the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, Goff enlisted in the U.S. Navy, Naval Construction Branch ("Seabees").

Called to active duty in July 1942, he underwent basic training, at first in Rhode Island and then at Gulfport, Mississippi.

After graduating in September, he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer (CPO) and posted to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where he spent 18 months.

His design assignments were strictly conventional (e.g., a club house, a mess hall, an officers' club), and limited by military regulations, availability of materials, cost, and schedules.

In 1943, the Marine command had ordered a project to enlarge some service facilities for men stationed there and their civilian visitors (families).

In March 1944, CPO Goff was ordered to report to Camp Parks, a naval complex in Dublin, California east of Oakland, for rehabilitation and reassignment (R & R).

A senior officer, Admiral Reeves, who was familiar with Goff's work in Alaska, had Goff assigned to the base operations staff.

Goff would remain there until he was discharged from the Navy in July 1945.

A 1951 Life magazine article stated that Goff was "one of the few US architects whom Frank Lloyd Wright considers creative...scorns houses that are ‘boxes with little holes."

Bruce Goff's father, Corliss, was the youngest of seven children born to a builder in Cameron, Missouri, who learned to be a watch repairman at an early age, and moved to Wakeeney, Kansas, where he opened his own watch repair business.

One day a young schoolteacher came in to have her watch repaired.

This house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

During this period, his work was heavily influenced through his correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright and with Louis Sullivan, both of whom had encouraged him to practice architecture with Rush, Endacott and Rush instead of enrolling in Massachusetts Institute of Technology; they felt the formal education would stifle his creativity.