Francis D. Lee

Francis D. Lee (1826–1885) was an American architect and inventor from Charleston, South Carolina.

[1] In 1852 he was hired as the architect to design the enlarged and remodeled Unitarian Church in Charleston, which took him 2 years to complete.

[2] He worked as an architect until the outbreak of the American Civil War, where he became a Confederate Army Captain under the staffing of General Beauregard,[3] who took full advantage of his inventiveness, by encouraging him to design and construct (with assistance) a small Torpedo Boat, named The Torch.

In 1868 he moved to St. Louis[5] and teamed up with Thomas B. Annan, a local architect, they quickly built a reputation for themselves after winning a design competition for St. Louis Merchant's Exchange Building (it cost £2 million to build and was completed in 1875).

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