Col. Horatio Balch Hackett, Jr. (May 8, 1880 – September 8, 1941)[1] was a leading American architect and construction executive, a college football player and official, a decorated combat veteran of World War I, and Assistant Administrator of the Public Works Administration during the presidency of Franklin D.

Hackett attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, arriving on June 27, 1900, distinguishing himself by making the varsity football team in his plebe year.

[2] Hackett was the only cadet in the history of West Point athletics to oppose Navy in three sports: football, baseball and basketball.

This will be the first fall in 31 years, except when I was in France during the World War, that I haven't spent every Saturday afternoon and Thanksgiving Day on a football field.

It was there that 12,000 spectators[14] watched St. Louis University crush Iowa 39–0 – and Hackett witnessed what he characterized as the "perfection" achieved by the offense of "Blue and White" coach Eddie Cochems and the unequaled passing of Bradbury Robinson, the sport's first triple-threat man.

He was quoted the next day in Ed Wray's St. Louis Globe-Democrat article, which was reprinted in other newspapers across the country, including The Washington Post: "It was the most perfect exhibition ... of the new rules ... that I have seen all season and much better than that of Yale and Harvard.

In his war diary, "The Cannoneers Have Hairy Ears," Robert J. Casey,[19][20] who served under Hackett as a Captain and later became an award-winning columnist for the Chicago Daily News, described the severity of Hackett's injuries and his long and difficult recovery:[21] The Colonel was almost dead from loss of blood when he reached a dressing station, but was pulled through by a remarkable constitution, plus a miracle.

For two years his jaws were wired together and he lived on liquids and pastes administered through a hole provided by the extraction of four of his front teeth.

Fearing he might never have another chance, Casey made sure to write down his thoughts on a man he considered an extraordinary commanding officer: According to present indications I may be closing this journal for good almost any minute now and I might as well go on record regarding our CO.

Hackett again interrupted his business career when his government was in need of his skills – this time those related to building and construction rather than the battlefield.

Observers in Washington regarded his appointment as a move to speed up construction of low income housing, since the PWA had spent little of the $100 million allocated for that purpose.

[2] In March 1938, he left those positions to become the president of the building firm Thompson–Starrett Co.,[28] a pioneer in the construction of skyscrapers in the United States.

[24] In late August 1941, Hackett was admitted to Henrotin Hospital in Chicago suffering from pneumonia, complicated by a stroke.