Henry K. Holsman

Henry K. Holsman, (1866–1963) was an American architect and car manufacturer from Chicago, Illinois, who is mostly known for the building of Parkway Garden Homes, more famously known as O Block.

Holsman was born on July 3, 1866, in Guthrie County, Iowa, to Louise and Henry Holsman Sr. 

Holsman graduated from Grinnell College in the Class of 1891 and he also graduated from the University of Nebraska and Chicago Art Institute.  Holsman married University of Nebraska graduate and artist Elizabeth Tuttle in 1897. 

They had four children--two daughters and two sons--and were married 59 years until her death in 1956. Holsman founded a pioneering automobile company in 1902 and reported produced nearly 1,000 vehicles annually before Holsman Automobile Company went bankrupt in 1910. 

He was a very prolific architect in Chicago, designing collegiate buildings, churches, banks "and thousands of private homes," sometimes in partnership with his sons John and William T. He died in Genoa City, Wisconsin, from "blunt force trauma" and "asphyxiation" in 1961.

Category:1866 births
Category:1963 deaths
Category:American architects