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Wight and Wight

Thomas Wight

Born: September 17, 1874, Nova Scotia. Married: Grace L. Sheridan, 1906. Died: 1949

William Drewing Wight

Born: January 22, 1882, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Married: Elsie Symonds, 1910. Died: 1947.

The sons of Robert and Emeline Wight, Thomas Wight was born September 17, 1874; and William Drewin Wight was born January 22, 1882, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Thomas Wight moved to the United States and joined the architectural firm of McKim, Meade & White in 1891. William Wight joined the same firm in 1900 where he had the opportunity to travel through Europe and gained a fondness for medieval gothic churches.

In 1904 Thomas Wight opened Wilder & Wight, an architectural firm in Kansas City. With his partner, Edward T. Wilder, the firms designed the new England Bank building at the corner of 10th and Baltimore in Kansas City, Missouri. William joined his brother in 1911. He eventually bought Wilder’s share of the firm, who retired in 1916, and Wight & Wight was formed. The firm became well known in the late 1920s and early 1930s for large Neoclassical structures that became Kansas City landmarks.

The brothers designed many of the prominent buildings in the metropolitan area including the Kansas City Life Insurance Company Building; the Mercy and St. Joseph Hospitals; the Wyandotte County Courthouse; the Pickwick Hotel; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; the Kansas City, Missouri City Hall; the Thomas Swope Memorial in Swope Park; Southeast High School; Jackson County Courthouse; Police Headquarters, Kansas City, Missouri; and the Clay Country Courthouse in Liberty, Missouri. The Nelson-Atkins Museum, among their most prominent, featured the neoclassical design elements for which they were known.

They remodeled Red Rocks, the home of the William Allen White family, in Emporia, from a Queen Anne to Tudor Revival. Completed in 1921, the house today is operated as Red Rocks State Historic Site. They built a French-Norman style house in west Topeka for Frank Pitts MacLennan, completed in 1928. Named Cedar Crest for the numerous cedar trees on the grounds, the house became the residence of the Kansas governor in 1962.

Thomas Wight died in 1949. William Wight died in 1947.

Entry: Wight and Wight

Author: Kansas Historical Society

Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.

Date Created: January 2016

Date Modified: January 2018

The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.