Blythe, Walter

Biography

Walter Blythe was born in Leeds, England. He came to America at the age of thirteen in 1849 and located in Cleveland one year later. He married Florida Geneva Heard, the daughter of architect Charles Heard. He learned the avocation of stone-cutter from his father-in-law. He later became a draftsman and then an architect. He was a veteran of the Forty-first Ohio Volunteers regiment during the Civil War. Immediately after the war, from 1866 to 1871, he was a partner in the firm of Heard and Blythe. In 1871 he went into business for himself. He was the president of the Board of Water Works. All of his work was built before the issuance of building permits by the City of Cleveland (1888), thus making it unidentifiable. He lived at the edge of the city at Kinsman Road and East 40th Street. He was the architect of many important commercial and governmental buildings built during the High Victorian era.