CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Ellery L. Davis

American architect

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 20, 2025
Entity authorityQ5365226 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ellery L. Davis (1887 – March 21, 1956) was an American architect based in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Early life

Davis was born in 1887 in Lake City, Florida. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1903 and the University of Nebraska in 1907.

Career

From 1911 to 1917, he worked in partnership with George A. Berlinghof in the firm of George Berlinghof and Ellery Davis. Following the dissolution of that partnership, he worked on his own until 1920 when he formed a partnership with Walter Wilson. The firm of Davis and Wilson is credited with the design of some of the most important buildings in the city of Lincoln, including Gold's department store, the Stuart Building and Theater, the Grainger Brothers building, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Rudge Memorial Chapel, several public schools, and numerous buildings on the University of Nebraska campus.

Davis' son, Ellery H. Davis joined him in the Davis and Wilson firm in the years after World War II. Ellery L. Davis died in 1956, and the firm used the name Davis & Wilson until 1968, when it was renamed Davis, Fenton, Stange and Darling. It has operated under the name Davis Design since 1995.

Davis designed the Modern Movement-style Nebraska State Historical Society Building at 1500 R St. Lincoln, NE (Davis, Ellery Lothrop), which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ellery L. Davis” is american architect. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ellery, Davis and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1887, 1956, 1903, 1907—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-01-01. For this dossier, Ellery, Davis and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american architect” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5365226. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1956, 1903 and 1907.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ellery L. Davis”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ellery L. Davis primary sources, Ellery L. Davis archive and Ellery research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ellery L. Davis”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ellery L. Davis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.