Dr. Uriel S. Wright Office - Fayette, MO - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

County of marker: Howard County
Location of marker: Church St. & Davis St., SW corner, Fayette
Marker Erected by: department of the Interior
Dedicated 1990
Building Built: 1830

We should begin with what is typical about the building. It can first be said, in this respect, that the building typifies the vernacular Federal/vestigial-Georgian mode that was pursued by the early Missouri craftsmen. This mode could manifest itself in any of the standard Southern house types from single-pen to central-passage I house configurations. Such dwellings, whether constructed of hewn logs, braced timber framing, or brick (stone being used only in foundations or chimneys in Boonslick construction), generally had eaves flush with their gable ends, as does the Wright building, and symmetrical facades of three, four or five bays. The brick work of the Wright house is also what one would expect to encounter in a building of the exploration/settlement period: Flemish bond is reserved for the facade, while common bond is employed on the remaining sides. The gauged brick arches over principal window and door openings are typical of the era, and lend to the building the spare, crisp and cleanly articulated look of the provincial Federal style.

The building's most arresting exterior features are the window surrounds of the facade; the style of execution of these surrounds--deeply grooved architraves accentuated by bulls-eye blocks in the upper corners--is a hallmark of the Howard County Federal style and can be-encountered adorning door and window openings of several area dwellings built during the late 1820s and early 1830s. The Wright building differs from these other buildings, however, in its comparative smallness and modesty, its lack of the exuberantly carved Federal style mantels (the finest achievements of the vernacular Federal style in the trans-Mississippi West) and other fine woodwork they contain, and by the curious fact that on the Wright building these surrounds are found on the exterior while in the others this feature was employed inside." ~ Fayette Historical Survey page 17-24