Proudfoot & Bird

In my July column, I mentioned that I went on the walking architecture tour downtown. I wrote about the first and only “death by elevator” event in Iowa history, which I learned about while on the tour when it was by Fourth Street and Court Avenue. About 45 minutes earlier, we were crossing onto Court Avenue by Water Street. As we were coming around the corner, our guide mentioned Proudfoot & Bird. I am a simple man who is attracted to simple things, like names. I heard “Proudfoot & Bird” and, because I am a millennial who consumes history, thought of the fancy restaurant inside Hotel Fort Des Moines. Our guide told us that William Proudfoot and George Bird built much of downtown Des Moines. 

Proudfoot & Bird became known for their Victorian Gothic style prior to the rise of Richardsonian Romanesque and then later the Beaux-Arts movement. In Des Moines, they were responsible for the Des Moines Fire Department (which later became the Des Moines Social Club), the Polk County Courthouse, First United Methodist Church (Tenth and Pleasant), Greek Orthodox Church of St. George, Drake’s Carnegie Hall, Des Moines City Hall, East High School and many more. 

William Proudfoot was born in Indianola in 1860 and became a draftsman for William Foster, who, at the time, was a leading architect in Des Moines. George Bird was born in 1854 in New Jersey. In 1882, the two men met in South Dakota where they first established themselves as Proudfoot and Bird and made a lot of money during the Great Dakota Boom until that economy started to collapse in 1890.

The duo moved west to Salt Lake City where they were joined by Henry Monheim, which changed their name to Monheim, Bird & Proudfoot. They were designing government buildings in Utah up until Monheim’s death in 1893. In 1896, they both returned to Des Moines where they remained for the remainder of their careers.

They also designed buildings outside of Des Moines including the President’s House at the University of Iowa, Beardshear Hall at Iowa State University, the Colfax Public Library, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Harlan.

In 1910, the firm merged with Hallett & Rawson when it became Proudfoot, Bird & Rawson. Bird retired in 1913 due to ill health, and his name remained until 1925 when H. Clark Souers joined as a partner and it became Proudfoot, Rawson, and Souers. The firm went through many incarnations over the next several decades that I pass over to avoid this column becoming even more clinical than it already is. Proudfoot died in 1928, and, after World War II, the firm became Brooks-Borg. In the 1960s, it was renamed Brooks-Borg-Skiles. In 2017, it became its current form of BBS Architects | Engineers.

I do not know a thing about architecture. While writing this, I had to look up the different styles and flavors because I had no clue what any of them were other than “brute.” The impact these two men had on not only our city but our entire state cannot be escaped. If you have the opportunity to go on one of the architecture walks, you should indulge in the fullest. If you do the south route, you will hear the story of Proudfoot & Bird. You will also place your hand on the outside wall of the Civic Center and feel the energy before you learn about “brute.” ♦

Kristian Day is a filmmaker and writer based in Des Moines. He also hosts the syndicated Iowa Basement Tapes radio program on 98.9 FM KFMG. Instagram: @kristianday | Twitter: @kristianmday