Joseph F. Leitner


Joseph Florence Leitner was an American architect whose work includes several rail stations. In Columbia, South Carolina he worked for Charles Coker Wilson for five years. Later he partnered with William J. Wilkins, first in Florence, South Carolina and then in an office in Wilmington, North Carolina, where Leitner practiced for a decade. to form Leitner & Wilkins. His work included commercial, educational, fraternal religious, industrial, residential, and transportation buildings in Colonial Revival architecture, Flemish architecture Zachary of Augusta in 1895.
Leitner moved to South Carolina and then North Carolina, where he spent at least 10 years in Wilmington, North Carolina starting in 1906. He worked out of the Southern Building.
From 1909 through 1912, Leitner was the official architect for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company doing work in Wilmington, Rocky Mount, and Fayetteville and other locations. He served two terms as president of the North Carolina Architectural Association and was a member of the North Carolina Board of Architecture.
He designed the Ricks Hotel in Rocky Mount and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad YMCA. His biggest project in North Carolina were Wilmington's Union Station the Atlantic Coast Line Office Building. A cold storage plant was also planned. Other designs included the Winston-Salem Southbound Freight Depot.
He designed the Thomas M. Emerson House in the Carolina Heights neighborhood for ACL's president. Other work included:
  • Wiggins Building
  • Wilmington Savings and Trust Building
  • Atlantic Trust and Banking Building
  • Cape Fear Club, as supervising architect, a brick Neoclassical Revival building at 206 Chestnut Street in Wilmington, North Carolina
  • Joseph H. Hinton House, Wilmington, on Market Street, in 1913
  • William Hooper School.
File:Columbus County, NC Courthouse.jpg|thumb|left|Columbus County Courthouse in Whiteville, North Carolina
Outside of Wilmington his work included:
He opened an office in Atlanta in 1917 with architect C. P. Niederhauser, who had worked in Jacksonville, Florida, and then joined the Atlanta firm of Edwards and Sayward. He may have worked in St. Petersburg, Florida in the firms of Leitner and Henson and Brown and Leitner. By 1930 he was living in Tampa, Florida, where he designed bridges. He died June 2, 1930. He is buried in Harlem Memorial Cemetery in Harlem, Georgia.
He was also assigned to design the C. & W. C. station in Georgia.
His works listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places include:
File:Plant City FL Union Depot05.JPG|thumb|Plant City Union Depot in Plant City, Florida, 2011