John Rudolph Niernsee

[1][2] He was born as Johann Rudolph Niernsee in Vienna, capital city of the old Austrian Empire and immigrated to the United States in 1837, at age 22.

He apprenticed to Benjamin Henry Latrobe, II, (1806–1878), engineer and manager at the B.

& O. and other railroads, (and son of another well-known architect, his father Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1764–1820).

[3] He is credited with having mentored Ephraim Francis Baldwin, (1837–1916), another well-known Maryland and Baltimore architect (and formed the similarly locally-famous firm Baldwin & Pennington with Josias Pennington, [1854–1929]), who also designed buildings and stations for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Niernsee served in the Confederate States Army as a Major.