William Ellsworth Fisher

William Ellsworth Fisher (1871 – 1937) was an architect who founded the Denver, Colorado firm that became Fisher & Fisher.

Fisher's father, Allen S. Fisher, moved to Denver from Clinton, Ontario, Canada, with his family in 1885. William became a draftsman for Balcomb & Rice in Denver in 1890 and then studied briefly with C. Powell Karr in New York. In 1892 he went into business in Denver as William Fisher, Architect. After ten years in solo practice, mainly designing starter homes, he partnered from 1901 to 1905 with Daniel Riggs Huntington, who had also worked for Balcomb & Rice. During this time the firm designed increasingly expensive residences and also commercial buildings. After returning to solo practice for a couple of years, he then partnered with his younger brother Arthur Addison Fisher from 1907 until his death in 1937. His son Alan B. Fisher also worked for the firm and became a partner after William's death.

The Fisher firm was extremely prestigious and left an extensive legacy in Colorado; 50 of 67 remaining buildings in Denver are either eligible for listing by the National Register of Historic Places or are listed either individually or as part of historic districts. Most of these, including residences, schools, churches, hospitals and commercial buildings, are from the period when William Fisher was in partnership with his brother. One assessment of the brothers' work is that because of their unusual originality and creativity, "Their contribution to Denver's early stylistic independence is enormous."

In 1908–09, Fisher was one of ten architects invited by ''The Delineator'' magazine to participate in a competition to design a $3,000 country house; however, he did not place. In the 1920s, Fisher was head of the Mountain Bureau of the Architects' Small House Service, which created standardized plans for cheap one- to three-bedroom houses to reduce costs for middle-class families. In the mid-1920s, he and his brother planned the oil company town of Parco, Wyoming (now Sinclair) and designed many buildings there, in a uniform Spanish Colonial style intended to encourage community spirit. The original town (Parco Historic District) centering on the plaza and the Parco Inn (formerly the Parco Hotel and the Sinclair Hotel) is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Provided by Wikipedia