William Ernest Kier

• American

William Ernest Kier, was a stockholder in the McClintock Company. He was from Iowa and his wife was from England. Kier learned the contracting business from J W Atkinson who, during the 1910's and 1920's was prominent throughout the United States as the owner of a firm which built many new US government buildings and other structures in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, and Hawaii. In May, 1912, Kier moved t to San Diego and over the years built some of San Diego's most prominent buildings including the Serra Museum building in Presidio Park, Fort Rosecrans, the Administration building at the North Island Naval Air Station, and part of the US Naval Hospital in Balboa Park. In addition to working with Herbert Palmer, Kier constructed buildings designed by Irving Gill, Eugene Hoffman, and William Templeton Johnson, three of San Diego's premier architects. Further, in 1934, his company was prime contractor for the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington and the Coolidge Dam Project in Arizona. In 1957 he was given an outstanding award by the Contractors Association of California who named him the Dean of West Coast Contractors. He was an amazing man; in his mid-nineties he continued to work five days a week at the Spreckles Building in downtown San Diego where he had maintained offices on the fourth floor since the 1920's. He died at the age of 100 in 1974, a much respected and admired old gentleman whose life had been intimately woven into the fabric of San Diego's growth and development. - NRHP, 14 August 1980