Archives West Finding Aid

Fred Grafton Rounds was born January 6, 1893, at St. Paul, Minnesota. He was graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1916. During the First World War, Rounds was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He was discharged as a 1st Lieutenant in April 1919. Rounds began his career in architecture for the firm of Croft and Hoerner Architects,in Minneapolis. In 1923, Rounds joined the WSC Department of Architectural Engineering in 1923, where he served as an assistant professor of architecture and as an assistant designer in the college architect's office. He also joined with his colleague, Stanley A. Smith, in the architectural firm of Smith and Rounds. The partnership designed many residences in Pullman in the late 1920s, along with several sorority and fraternity houses. By the late 1920s, Rounds left his post at WSC to pursue a full-time private architecture practice in Tacoma and Chehalis.

In 1932 he designed the center unit addition to the Pullman High School. In 1934 he returned to the WSC campus to oversee several college building construction project sponsored by the federal Public Works Administration. From 1937 to 1950, Rounds he served as superintendent of the State College's Department of Buildings and Grounds. He retired from WSC in 1958. Fred G. Rounds was a civic-minded resident of Pullman. He joined the local Kiwanis club, serving on numerous committees. He was elected its president in 1943, and in 1955 served as the Pacific Northwest District Governor. In addition, Rounds was an organizer and long-time member of the Planning Commission and the Whitman County Planning Commission. He served on the Pullman School Board and the Pullman Memorial Hospital Board; and he was director of the Pullman-WSC Civil Defense program and chairman of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce. Rounds was a member of the Pullman Community Congregational Church, where he served as a deacon and as chief usher. He also oversaw the design and construction of the congregation's new house of worship in the mid-1950s. He was also active in Masonic lodges. In 1919, Rounds married the former Ruth Wikoff. The union brought three children, Mrs. Harold (Jeanne) Olsen, Mrs. Earl (Margery) Muir, and Fred G. Rounds, Jr. Ruth Rounds died in 1949. In 1955, Fred Rounds married the former Mrs. John P. (Dora) Sanger. Rounds died on May 2, 1972.