Born in 1908 in Omaha, Nebraska, James M. Hunter went on to become a prominent Boulder architect and Fellow of the American Instiute of Architects (AIA). He studied architectural engineering at Iowa State and was awarded his degree by the University of Illinois in 1936.
After graduation, he moved to Boulder and worked as a draftsman for Glen H. Huntington. In 1940, with the addition of Harold Stuart Jones, the firm became known as 'Huntington, Jones and Hunter' and remained active until 1945. During these five years they designed a number of buildings, including the Citizens National Bank Building in Boulder and several houses in the Floral Park subdivision of Boulder, known as "Red Square".
Hunter served for two years in the Pacific during WWII before returning to Boulder to resume his architectural career. On his return he formed his own company, and as principal of the firm designed many Colorado based academic complexes.
Hunter was both planner and architect for Colorado State University in Fort Collins (then Colorado A&M College), Fort Lewis College, Durango; Regis College, Denver as well as Tarkio College in Missouri. Hunter was also a member of an advisory committee that helped to establish an accredited degree program in architecture at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Colorado chapter of the AIA established the James M Hunter scholarship, awarded for graduate study in architecture, in honor of Hunter's contribution to education and architecture.
Many of Boulder's key civic, commercial, organizational, and educational buildings, as well as many residential buildings, were designed by Hunter. Most notable among these are the original Boulder Library, Baseline Junior High School, Boulder Medical Center and the Boulder Municipal Building.
In addition to architecture, Hunter's other great interest was solar design and power and he was highly regarded for his efforts to incorporate solar design into his architecture. He was a member of the advisory board for the Association of Applied Solar Energy. In collaboration with George Lof, a noted authority on solar design, Hunter designed residences for Lof in Boulder in 1949 and Denver in the early 1950s. Additionally, the Nelson House in Boulder, incorporates many principles of passive solar design.
Hunter retired in 1973 and died at home in Boulder in 1983 at the age of 75. He is interred at the Danforth Chapel on the Colorado State University campus - a building of his own design. (From a Biographical Sketch by the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Colorado Historical Society.)
