Robert Frost Daggett

(Mar. 13, 1875-Sept. 6, 1955). After graduating from Indianapolis High School (later Shortridge High School) in 1893, Daggett undertook the finest architectural education available in his day. He earned a degree in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 and then studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, receiving a diploma from the prestigious French school in 1901.

Upon returning to Indianapolis he joined R. P. Daggett & Company, the architectural firm founded by his father, Robert Platt Daggett. He assumed management of the firm around 1912 upon his father’s retirement and continued the practice under his own name after his father’s death in 1915.

A U.S. Army officer during World War I, Daggett was stationed in France for 16 months and was in charge of building military hospitals. Resuming private practice in 1919, he renewed his firm’s association with Eli Lilly And Company, executing dozens of commissions for Lilly plants in Indianapolis and Greenfield, and with Purdue University, where he designed five buildings.

Daggett also was an architect for Indiana, DePauw, and Butler universities. He designed several buildings for the Indiana University School Of Medicine as well as Long, Riley, Coleman, Carter, and Community hospitals.

He was supervising architect for Tabernacle Presbyterian Church (1921-1924) and was responsible for the Indianapolis Athletic Club (1922), Consolidated Building, Chamber Of Commerce Building (1926), Admiral Apartments (circa 1930), and many Indianapolis Public Schools. Among his few residential works are the Josiah Kirby Lilly Sr. and Col. Eli Lilly homes on Sunset Lane.

Daggett was active in numerous professional organizations, fraternal societies, and social clubs. The first president of the Indiana Construction League, he also was the first Indiana-born architect to be named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. The Indiana Society of Architects awarded him its Certificate of Merit in 1931 for his design of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist. Two of his buildings, Jordan Hall at Butler University (with Thomas Hibben, 1928) and the Washington Hotel (1925), are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1948 Robert Frost (“Pete”) Daggett, Jr. and F. Harold Naegele were named partners in the firm, which later became Daggett Naegele & Associates. The business was dissolved in 1977 upon the younger Daggett’s retirement.

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