Wilson & Herrald designed many landmark buildings in Strathcona including the town hall, fire hall, library, Commercial Hotel, Princess Theatre, and Rutherford House on the University of Alberta campus.
Wilson & Herrald (1907-1923)
Both Arthur Gordon Wilson and David Easton Herrald were born in Scotland; Herrald in Edinburgh in 1881, and Wilson a year later in Dundee. Wilson graduated from the architectural program at University College Dundee in 1901 and then worked in that city for five years. Herrald likely studied in Edinburgh; he became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1911. The pair emigrated together to Winnipeg in 1906 where Wilson briefly worked for another firm, Stevenson & Patterson, before forming a partnership with Herrald a year later.
Wilson and Herrald moved to Strathcona in 1908 and capitalized greatly on the construction boom that was just starting to take off. Over the next five years the firm designed many public, commercial, and residential buildings in Strathcona. From 1910 until the start of the First World War they opened a branch office across the river in Edmonton, from which they completed their only ecclesiastical structure, the gothic First Presbyterian Church. In 1920 Wilson and Herrald moved their office to Calgary. They continued to practise there for three years until Herrald moved to California and opened a private practice there.