"Walter Thomas Bailey"(1882-1941)

Was an African-American architect from Kewanee Illinois.He was the First African American graduate with a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.He worked at the Tuskegee Institute,and practiced in both Memphis and Chicago.Walter was born in Kewanee Illinois,where he attended Kewanee High School.He enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1900.He was the first African-American graduate of the University of Illinois School of Architecture with a bachelor of science in architectural engineering.Walter earned that degree in 1904 and was granted an honorary master's degree from the University in 1910.Walter was the first licensed African-American architect in the state of Illinois.Initially,after he graduated,Walter worked for a small architectural firm owned by Harry Eckland in his hometown of Kewanee.During this time he also worked for a Champaign,Illinos,firm,Spencher & Temple.He assisted in the planning of the 1905 Colonel Wolfe School in Champaign during this period.In 1905 he was appointed as the head of the Mechanical industries Department at the Tuskegee University.While at Tuskegee he designed several campus buildings including White Hall(1908),and girl's a dormitory.He remained at Tuskegee until 1916 when he moved to Memphis and opened a practice on Beale Street.After his move to Memphis he began the first of multipe commissions for the Knights of Pythias.He designed the Mosaic State Temple Building andthe Pythian Theater Building,both in Little Rock in 1922.The next year he undertook another Arkansas commission,the in Hot Springs,the Pythian Bath House and Sanitarium.Through his Knight of Pythias connections Walter was given what would be the largest commisson of his career,the National Knights of Pythias Temple in Chicago,Illinois,Construction began on the building in 1924 and Walter moved his office to the city.The site of the temple was on Chicago's south side in an area known as "Bronzeville"or Black Metropolis."He first rented an office on the second floor of the Overton Hygienc Building on South State Street.Construction on the National Knights of Pythias Temple in Chicago Walter had few major commissions during the 1920s and the subsequent Great Depression greatly decreased business for him and many other black entrepreneurs in the area.The last major project for Walter was the Chicago Landmark Modern Art First Church of Deliverance in 1939.