Augustus F. Gauger papers

Augustus Gauger was born in Germany on February 16, 1852. He came to the U.S. with his family ten years later and lived on a farm near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He worked as a carpenter in Oshkosh for several years, then went to Chicago to seek employment as an apprentice architectural draftsman. In 1875 Gauger moved to St. Paul and was employed as a draftsman in the office of Edward Bassford. Bassford was one of the city's most successful architects in the late 19th century and his office was a training ground for many architects of the next generation.

Gauger left Bassford in 1878 and set up his own practice in which he remained active until the late 1920s. While managing his own firm, Gauger also served successively as architect to the State Board of Education (1881-1887), St. Paul city building inspector (1894-1895), member of the committee revising the St. Paul Building Code (1896, 1910-1911), and architect to the Board of Trustees of the Minnesota State Soldiers' Home (1905-1929). He married Albertine Nitschke in 1878. The couple had seven sons, one of whom, Raymond, succeeded his father in the practice. Gauger died in St. Paul on February 17, 1929. The Gauger firm was responsible for many buildings in Minnesota and throughout the U.S. Among these were courthouses in 14 states, plus numerous residences, schools, and commercial and institutional structures.