Joseph P. Guth


Joseph P. Guth was a popular civil engineer, architect and builder in Omaha, Nebraska, starting in the 1880s.

Biography

Guth was born in Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg, and attended schools in the Kingdom of Württemberg and the Kingdom of Bavaria, by then part of the German Empire. His father, J. P. Guth, was a notable architect of government railroad projects in the German Empire in the mid-1800s. Graduating from school in 1879, the younger Guth worked as an architect for two years and decided to emigrate to the United States. Following his father in railroad design, he first worked for the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad based in Cleveland, Ohio. Guth soon switched to the Northern Pacific Railroad in Brainerd, Minnesota, and left there to join the Burlington Railroad in Lincoln, Nebraska. He finally landed with the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha and stayed there until 1887.
He immigrated to the United States in 1884. Originally living in Cleveland, Ohio, Guth partnered with Joseph Dietrick to start an architectural firm; however, by 1891 the partnership had dissolved. Continuing as a sole proprietor, Guth worked business blocks, breweries, factories and warehouses, fire stations, schools, single and multifamily residences, churches and halls in Omaha and across eastern Nebraska. Guth is also credited with designing several industrial brewing buildings for the Storz and Krug breweries in Omaha.
Omaha's prolific apartment designer Henry D. Frankfurt apprenticed under Guth.
Guth practiced architecture until he died, aged 68, in Omaha at his 1911 Wirt Street home on 23 April 1928. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Omaha.

Notable designs