Yost & Packard, consisting of partners Joseph Warren Yost and Frank Lucius Packard, was perhaps Columbus' most iconic Gilded Age architecture firm. Having designed many landmark buildings at Ohio State, in Columbus, and across Ohio, the firm's local impact is comparable to the work of Adler & Sullivan or Holabird & Roche of Chicago. Many of their extant works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Yost & Packard's work is largely within the Richardsonian Romanesque style, featuring dense massing and extensive usage of masonry. Many of their designs played with the precepts of historical revivalist styles in a similar manner to Frank Furness, creating sometimes bizarre buildings such as the proto-Prairie School Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad Station and the sickly green Broad Street United Methodist Church.
Yost & Packard was founded in 1892, after the two prominent local architects decided to form a partnership. Over the firm's lifetime, they designed around 230 buildings. Notable employees of the firm included Yost's nephew Joel McCarty and George Bulford, who later founded the firm Richards, McCarty, and Bulford.
The firm was dissolved in 1899, after Yost moved to New York. A successor firm called Snyder, Babbitt, and Matthews completed the former's remaining unfinished Columbus work.
Joseph Yost
Joseph Warren Yost was born in Clarington, Ohio, in 1847. He began his architectural studies under West Virginian Joseph Fairfax in 1869, after which he began his own firm in Bellaire, Ohio. In 1882, Yost decided to move to Columbus, a move that brought his firm increased success. He designed his own house in 1884, the still-standing Joseph W. Yost House, and founded the Association of Ohio Architects in 1885.
After working with Packard from 1892-1899, Yost grew impatient and moved to New York City in 1900, where he sought even grander projects. He formed the firm D'Oench & Yost in 1901 with architect Albert D'Oench. The latter died in 1918, and Yost continued working alone until his retirement in 1921. Yost died in 1923.
Frank Packard
Frank Lucius Packard was born in Delaware, Ohio, in 1866. While in school in 1881, he worked as a draftsman for local architect F. A. Gartner, later attending The Ohio State University (studying alongside Joseph N. Bradford) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1887. He worked in New York City at the firm Babb, Cook, & Willard and various other architects until 1891-1892, where he moved to Columbus and established his own office.
When Yost moved to New York City in 1900, Packard continued to operate alone in Columbus for the rest of his life. He was associated with AIA Columbus and the Columbus Society of Architects. Before his death, Packard was involved with the planning of Columbus' Civic Center. He died suddenly of a stroke in 1923.