Louise Caldwell Murdock
Louise Caldwell Murdock (1857–1915) was an American interior designer and architect who worked in Wichita, Kansas. She was born in Caneadea, New York, and in 1871 her father, J. E. Caldwell, moved the family to Wichita, where he opened a Queens Ware shop on North Main Street. She married Roland Pierpont Murdock in 1877. In 1899 they founded the Twentieth Century Club in Wichita, and she served as its president until 1906. After her husband’s death in 1906, she studied interior design in New York City with Frank Alvah Parsons, then returned to Wichita and designed the seven‑story Caldwell‑Murdock Building on East Douglas, which was Wichita’s tallest building at the time. She dreamed of a Wichita art museum and donated her fortune to help build a significant American art collection. She worked with her friend Elizabeth Stubblefield Navas to assemble the collection. The Wichita Art Museum opened in 1935 and houses the Murdock collection, a premier display of American art in the region.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:59 (CET).