Background
William M. Aiken was born at Charleston, South Carolina, United States in 1885.
William M. Aiken was born at Charleston, South Carolina, United States in 1885.
Mr. Aiken attended the city schools, completed his education at the University of the South. Having decided to become an architect, the young man studied four years in Boston at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and after he was graduated in 1879.
After university William continued his training in the office of Henry Hobson Richardson at Brookline Leaving there, Aiken went to Cincinnati to work a few years for the fete James McLaughlin, following which he moved to New York in 1886 to begin practice for himself. He had been active there for less than a decade. Although he served only two years in that office, it was during a period when the Federal Government was building many public structures, and Mr. Aiken's works were many in number. Among the most important should be named the U. S. Mint at Denver, Colo., the new Mint at Philadelphia, and numerous Post Offices and Court Houses.
Resuming private practice in 1897, Mr. Aiken designed a number of public buildings in Charleston, S. C. His later years were spent in New York. In 1903 he served as Consulting Architect for the Borough of Manhattan on the re-modeling of the interior of the New York City Hall, also was employed on work at the New York County Court House and other buildings.