Maybury, Charles G. (1830–1917)

Charles G. Maybury dominated architectural practice in Winona from 1865 to 1905, designing churches, schools, courthouses, commercial buildings, and residences in the city and throughout southeast Minnesota. He moved comfortably between styles, including Italianate, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, and Gothic Revival. Many of his buildings have survived and are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Like most of Winona’s early entrepreneurs and professionals, Maybury migrated from the East as a young man in search of new opportunities after treaties with the Dakota opened the west bank of the Mississippi to colonization. Born in Solon, New York in 1830, he apprenticed for six years with a building contractor and then became a partner in the firm. When the young man came to Winona in 1856, he was already an experienced draftsman and builder. He worked as a building contractor during his first nine years in Winona, after which he set aside his tools and focused on architecture.

Winona’s growing lumber industry was fueling the rapid expansion of the business district. Starting in the 1870s, Maybury designed a large share of the downtown’s commercial buildings—especially those on Third Street, which are part of a National Register of Historic Places commercial district (NRHP, 1998). His 1872 design for Anger’s Block (NRHP, 1978) was an early example. He also designed most of the original brick school buildings in Winona.

In the 1870s Maybury designed houses in the Italianate style, including a home for the Winona brewer C. C. Beck on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, the George H. Haven House in Chatfield (NRHP, 1982), and the sheriff’s residence and jail in Caledonia, the county seat of Houston County (NRHP, 1983).

In 1881 Maybury’s son Jefferson joined him and the two practiced as Maybury & Son. The firm adjusted easily to changing architectural styles. In 1883 they designed the Houston County Courthouse (NRHP, 1983) in Romanesque Revival style, and six years later employed the newly popular Richardsonian Romanesque style in the Winona County Courthouse (NRHP, 1970). In the judgement of architectural historian David Gebhard, the Winona courthouse and the Minneapolis City Hall and Courthouse mark the highpoints of the Richardsonian style in Minnesota. In these years the Mayburys mastered the Queen Anne style, as exemplified by the Abner Hodgins House (NRHP, 1984). This home in the city’s Windom Park Historic District is widely recognized as one of the finest homes in the state.

Many Winona congregations commissioned the firm to plan their churches. The architects designed churches in Romanesque Revival style, like the German Methodist Episcopal Church. They also designed Gothic Revival churches, like St. Martin’s Lutheran and St. John Nepocene, built for the city’s Bohemian parish. They designed many other churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but their crowning achievement was the Basilica of St. Stanislaus Kostka, built for the Polish Catholic congregation on Winona’s East Side in 1895 in a Polish Cathedral style, a blending of the Baroque and the Romanesque.

Based on his extensive experience as a builder, Charles Maybury also oversaw the construction of two of Winona’s grandest buildings. In 1890, the federal government employed him to supervise construction of the Post Office and Federal Building (razed in 1963). In 1896, his home congregation enlisted him as supervising architect for Central United Methodist Church, designed by St. Louis architect Lorenzo B. Wheeler.

Charles Maybury had a defining influence on the built environment of Winona. An early history of Winona County remarked that “it is impossible to get out of the sight of his work in walking through the city.” As noted earlier, however, Maybury & Son were also active throughout southeastern Minnesota, including in Rochester and Caledonia. They designed Queen Anne houses for the Mayo brothers—for W. J. Mayo in 1888 (razed 1918) and for C. H. Mayo in 1894 (razed 1987) They also worked extensively for the Franciscan Sisters in Rochester. In Caledonia, the firm designed adjacent houses for Robert and Ellsworth Sprague (NRHP, 1982), two successful bankers in Caledonia.

In 1904, Jefferson Maybury moved West and eventually opened an office in Seattle. The following year his father, who was then seventy-five, retired from active practice. He died in Winona in 1917.