You may not have heard of the Ruffini brothers, but you’ve probably seen their work. During the Gilded Age, F. E. “Ernst” and Oscar Ruffini were part of the first wave of professional architects to practice in Texas. Their legacy consists of commercial, public, institutional, and private buildings and residences constructed starting in 1870s. A large collection of the brothers’ drawings, specifications, and correspondence is preserved at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin. Looking for your next Texas road trip? The brothers were responsible for buildings across the state from Quitman to San Angelo—many of which are still standing.
Ernst and Oscar Ruffini were born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a family of German extraction tracing their paternal origins to northern Italy. Their parents emigrated from Kamenz in 1848, arriving in Chicago among a group of 58,000 immigrants called the Forty-Eighters, before relocating to Cleveland two years later, where the boys’ father worked as a furrier amid a thriving German-American community. It was there that the brothers trained as apprentice architects, with Oscar also spending time in Cincinnati. In 1877, at age 26, Ernst moved to Austin as the partner of fellow architect Jasper N. Preston. Meanwhile, Oscar visited France from 1878 to 1880 before joining Ernst in 1883, aged 25, to work as a draftsman in his Austin office.
During this period, the Texas Legislature was funding construction projects to build and enlarge public institutions, including expensive facilities like prisons, asylums, and universities. An architect could earn large fees for this work while enhancing his reputation, which would make it easier for him to acquire county or private work. The Ruffinis were in direct competition with other accomplished builders, as evidenced in their correspondence. Versatility was a key characteristic necessary to establish and maintain a successful practice in Texas; each brother was able to diversify his business through an ability to design a number of building types, including public buildings, churches, opera houses, stores, office buildings, banks, lodge halls, and schools.
From 1879-1884, the brothers worked together. However, they were temperamentally and professionally different; Ernst was entrepreneurial and outgoing—two traits that helped him make advantageous business contacts—while Oscar was amiable but reserved. Ernst excelled at design, while Oscar was the better draftsman and engineer. Ernst designed more than 40 buildings in his short nine-year career, including 11 courthouses and four state buildings: the East Texas State Penitentiary (built 1879), the Temporary Capitol (1882), the Old Main Building of the University of Texas at Austin (1882-1889), and the Asylum for the Insane (1883-1884). Although Oscar did not design or execute a state building personally, he did assist his brother from 1878 to 1884, preparing drawings and specifications. The Texas State Capitol (1885-1888) was ultimately constructed from a design submitted by Elijah E. Myers of Detroit, but Ernst was the “hometown favorite” and came second in the competition with his design, called the “San Jacinto.” It is believed that he later resubmitted this same design in the competition for the Colorado State Capitol.
The Blanco County Courthouse is perhaps the outstanding example of Ernst’s design work; his preferred style for courthouses was the French Second Empire style, with its hallmark mansard roof. He was also responsible for the Millett Opera House—the only Ernst Ruffini-designed building in Austin still standing. Ernst stayed involved in the German community as a member of the Austin Turnverein and subscriber to a German newspaper, and he wrote to some of his clients in German, as evidenced by the letters in the State Archives.
Although not an accomplished designer like his brother, Oscar Ruffini excelled at the technical execution of designs and plans and was responsible for many of these while working for Ernst. Oscar relocated to San Angelo for his health in 1884, where he was the city’s first professional architect and its principal architect until 1918. His sparing use of architectural detail reflects both the preferences and financial resources of his clients. It may also indicate a desire to suit his building style to the scale and economic level of the prosperous small-town environment. A typical Oscar Ruffini store and office building from the mid-1880s to the mid-1890s was comprised of two stories, built of native stone or plain frame, with the standard four-level façade of that era. He often specified iron pilasters or other decorative elements for the front of the building. His residences, many of them in the popular Queen Anne cottage style, were enlivened by the imaginative use of ornamental detail work. A fine example of his commercial design work is the S. Lapowski & Bros Building. Oscar never married; he financed the college education of several students and was a charter member of the local Sons of Hermann fraternal insurance benefit society and an active member of the Turnverein in San Angelo, for whom he also designed and built a headquarters building.
Ernst’s wife Elsie died in October 1885; less than one month later, he died of a heart condition at age 34, leaving behind three children. Oscar stepped in to supervise construction of the Concho County Courthouse, which Ernst had been working on at the time of his death, and later used his brother’s plans as the basis for the Mills and Sutton County Courthouses. Oscar was one of the founding members of the Texas State Association of Architects, the first professional society for architects in the state, founded in early 1886, two months after Ernst’s death. He became a significant property owner in San Angelo but kept his offices in his home—an unassuming former toolshed constructed of unfinished board-and-batten frame. This building was moved to the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark in 1951. Oscar Ruffini died in San Angelo in 1957, aged 99.
The State Archives’ Ruffini Collection includes 487 architectural drawings, 100 blueprints, and correspondence, photographs, printed materials, legal documents, and financial records dating from 1877 to 1937, plus Oscar’s ink stamp. Additional archival collections documenting the work of the Ruffini brothers are held by the Alexander Architectural Archive and the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin; the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark Archives and Library in San Angelo; and the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
