Background
Herbert Edmund Hewitt was born in 1871 at Bloomington, Illinois, United States.
Herbert Edmund Hewitt was born in 1871 at Bloomington, Illinois, United States.
He began architectural training in 1889, and after the Massachusetts Institute Institute of Technology, was graduated in 1887 at University Chicago.
Mr. Hewitt began practice in Peoria in 1897, and carried on alone until 1907 when he joined Frank N. Emerson in Partnership. In the years that followed the partners established a wide and successful practice, commissioned to design many of Peoria’s out standing public and commercial buildings. Among the major works of the firm should be cited the Commercial National Bank and Peoria Life Buildings; Orpheum Theatre, and Shrine Temple, 1909; Consistory Cathedral; Barker Memorial; Jefferson Hotel, 1912; and the Proctor Recreational Center. In addition to the above, Mr. Hewitt was co-architect of two of the city's leading newspaper plants, the Star and the Journal-Transcript Buildings. Elsewhere he designed the Monmouth (Ill.) College, State Reformatory at Dwight, and Hotel Goldman at Fort Smith, Ark.
Well-known professionally, Mr. Hewitt served as Regional Director of the Institute. He was a past president of the Central Chapter, A.I.A., and member and vice-president for four years of the Illinois Society of Architects. During his career he gave generously of his services in behalf of the important interests of the profession, in particular the otate Board of Examination for Architects, the Institute Committee of Registration, and the National Council of Registration Boards.