Joseph Pierre Foucart (1848–1917) was a prominent architect during the opening of the

Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...

. The city of

Guthrie, Oklahoma Guthrie is a city and county seat in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City Metroplex. The population was 10,191 at the 2010 census, a 2.7 percent increase from the figure of 9,925 in the 2000 census. First kno ...

's skyline is dominated by buildings designed by him. Joseph-Foucart

Foucart was the first architect to establish a practice in

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

. He was the son of Katherine Mater and John Pierre Foucart, born on November 14, 1848, in Arlon, Belgium. He studied at the Royal Athenaeum in Arlon, Belgium, and studied civil engineering and architecture at Ghent, graduating in 1865. He worked as a civil engineer, and served in the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War. He oversaw the construction of the castle of Viere and assisted the architect for the King of Belgium. In 1880 he relocated to Paris and served as draftsman for the City Hall. His first wife was Frances Henrietta Jacques, who died in France. He later married Mary Philomene Jacquart née Coen in 1865. He immigrated to the United States in 1888 and settled within two months of the Land Rush of 1889. He left Guthrie in 1907 and moved to

Muskogee, Oklahoma Muskogee () is the thirteenth-largest city in Oklahoma and the county seat of Muskogee County. Home to Bacone College, it lies approximately southeast of Tulsa. The population of the city was 36,878 as of the 2020 census, a 6.0 percent decrease ...

. He died there on April 11, 1917. His building designs were influenced by the French architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. The buildings Foucart designed include the Bonfils Building, DeFord Building, Gaffney Building, Gray Brother's Building, State Capital Publishing Company Building, Victor Block and the Foucart Building. He also designed the First National Bank and Trust Company in Perry, Oklahoma, the "Castle on the plains" at the Northwestern State Normal School in Alva and the Williams Hall library at Oklahoma State University; the last two buildings are no longer extant. He also designed two brick private residences in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

References

19th-century American architects 1848 births 1917 deaths Belgian emigrants to the United States Architects from Oklahoma {{US-architect-stub