R. Harold Zook
American architect (1889–1949)

Roscoe Harold Zook (21 May 1889 – 17 April 1949) was an American architect best known for his work in suburban Chicago, Illinois. He received a degree in architecture from the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology, or IIT) in 1914. In 1916, Zook married his first wife, Mildred Barnard. They divorced in the late 1930s. They had one son, Harold Barnard Zook, who followed in his father's footsteps to become an architect in Corona del Mar, California. In the early 1940s, Zook married his second wife, Florence (Barkey) Nissen, whom he met through mutual friends (and clients). Zook died in April 1949, just short of his 60th birthday.
Early life and career
Roscoe Harold Zook was born in Valparaiso, Indiana on May 21, 1889, the sixth child of Florence and Dennis Coder Zook. His father was a builder, working as a master carpenter for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Fort Wayne. Zook's uncle, Jacob Steel Zook, was also a builder, most notably designing the Brumback Library in Van Wert, Ohio, now recognized as a Historic Place.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “R. Harold Zook” as american architect (1889–1949). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american architect (1889–1949). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7273684. VIAF identifies the subject as 172098161. The Library of Congress control number is no2010088930. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1949, 1914 and 1916.
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This entry incorporates text from “R. Harold Zook” 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.