3/30/2011:
In a few weeks the United States will recognize the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. A number of the war’s notable characters would eventually go on to make their mark on North Dakota. Some are nationally recognized figures such as George Armstrong Custer. while others have become local legends like Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, Smith Stimmel. But some names are less familiar to today’s North Dakotan, including noted Milwaukee architect and Civil War cartographer, Henry C. Koch.
Born in Germany on this date in 1841, Henry and his parents moved to Wisconsin while he was still a baby. At a young age he began an apprenticeship with an influential Milwaukee architect. But Koch’s budding career was cut short by the Civil War.
Enlisting in the 24th Wisconsin in 1862, Koch’s drafting skills became evident to his superiors, and the new recruit was soon detailed to Major General Philip Sheridan’s staff as a topographical engineer. For the next three years he served in both the western and eastern theaters of the war preparing battlefield maps. By the war’s end, Koch had proved himself one of the Union Army’s most important cartographers. General Sheridan personally presented Koch with a brass compass as a token of esteem for his valued service, and several of his maps were eventually included in the “Official Records.”
After the war, Koch returned to Milwaukee and began a partnership with his former employer before beginning his own practice in 1870. For the next three decades, the architect designed religious, residential, educational, industrial and commercial structures across the upper Midwest. But his most prolific works are found in the form of county courthouses. With the rapid expansion of the west following the Civil War, the need for courthouses offered abundant opportunities for the region’s architects. Koch proved largely successful in his bids for civic buildings and his works are found throughout the mid-west, ranging from Wisconsin to Kansas to North Dakota.
Henry Koch’s only known work in North Dakota is the Stutsman County Courthouse in Jamestown; the state’s oldest surviving courthouse. The building is a rare example in the Upper Midwest of the Gothic-Revival style of architecture. It beautifully showcases Koch’s skill as an architect and his brilliance as an artist – talents developed in Milwaukee, forged on the battlefields of the Civil War and employed on the plains of North Dakota.
Dakota Datebook written by Christina Sunwall
Sources:
“County of Stutsman Vs. State Historical Society of North Dakota.” In Justice Meschke: North Dakota Supreme Court, 1985.
"Group of Eight Civil War Associated Documents Relating to Henry C. Koch, 24th Wisconsin, including one Signed by Major General...". Retrieved February 28, 2011, from <http://historical.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=6002&Lot_No=72007>.
"Historic Sites: Stutsman County Courthouse State Historic Site." Retrieved February 28, 2011, from http://history.nd.gov/historicsites/stutsmancc/index.html.
O'Brien, W. P. (1989). Milwaukee Architect: Henry C. Koch. Art History. Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin. Master of Arts.