Electus Darwin Litchfield was born in New York on April 25, 1872. He graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1889 and attended the M.E. Stevens Institute of Technology in 1892. He worked for two years in the firm of Carrere & Hastings, then became a member of the firm of Lord & Hewlett, architects (1901-1908). He was a partner in the practice of Tracy, Swartwout & Litchfield (1908-1913), before setting up his own office. In 1919, he created the firm of Electus D. Litchfield & Rogers, and in 1926, he again went into private practice. Litchfield died in New York on November 27, 1952.

Litchfield designed a number of prominent buildings throughout the United States, including the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Denver; the St. Paul Public Library and James J. Hill Reference Library, St. Paul; the Astoria Column, Astoria, Oregon; and the U.S. Post Office, Courthouse, and Custom House, Albany, New York. He also designed several structures in New York, including the Brooklyn Masonic Temple; the City Club, 800 Park Avenue; numerous apartment buildings; and was town planner of Yorkship Village, a permanent industrial town of 1,700 built during World War I for the Emergency Fleet Corporation, New York Shipbuilding Company. In addition, he designed several monuments in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota for the Great Northern Railroad. Litchfield associated with William Ingemann of St. Paul in the design of Kirk Hall (1926) on the campus of Macalester College, St. Paul.