HILL, Henry W. (1852-1924) and his partner Arthur F. Woltersdorf (1870-1948) maintained an office in Chicago, Illinois and executed one commission in Canada, a distinctive five storey warehouse for the A.J. Rumely Threshing Co., Pacific Avenue, SASKATOON, SASK. in 1911-12 (Saskatoon Daily Star, 29 Oct. 1912, 27, descrip.; Saskatoon Phoenix, Harvest Number, Dec. 1912, 2 and 8). With its stylized patterned brickwork incorporating the crest and logo of this major farm implements company, the facade combines subtle differences in the proportions of piers, bays and windows and gives the work a unified appearance rarely found in other functional industrial buildings erected in Saskatoon during the construction boom before WW1. They also prepared plans for an identical five storey warehouse for A.J. Rumely, to be built on Rose Street in Regina in 1912, but this scheme was not carried out (Regina Leader, 19 June 1912, 2, illus. & descrip.; inf. Frank Korvemaker, Regina).
Hill was born in Germany and educated in Hamburg. He emigrated to the United States in 1872 and was a partner in the firm of Bauer & Hill until 1894. Woltersdorf was born in Chicago and worked briefly as a draftsman with the esteemed Chicago firm of Burnham & Root before moving to Boston to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both architects formed a partnership in Chicago in 1894 and practised successfully until Hill retired and returned to Germany in 1914. Woltersdorf continued to practise in Chicago where his works included the office and warehouse of the same A.J. Rumley Co. which had initially commissioned Hill & Woltersdorf to undertake the design of the Saskatoon branch for that company in 1911. (H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, biography of Hill, 286-87; biography of Woltersdorf, 669-70; obituary for Woltersdorf in the New York Times, 8 March 1948)