Wisconsin Builder - The A List

Chris Thompson

Making history

The Daily Reporter Publishing Co. was born on the trading floor of Milwaukee's Grain Exchange amid the frenzy of Wisconsin's wheat Wall Street in 1897.

Over the next three years, if you wanted to know anything about the grain boom pounding through the state, you picked up The Daily Reporter.

And then the bottom fell out.

The grain market moved west in the early 1900s, and the state's economy shifted dramatically from agriculture to industrial production. In a way, The Daily Reporter shifted with it, except instead of focusing on the industrial market, the newspaper turned to the world of construction that opened when industry arrived with thousands of workers.

A spike in population meant a huge demand for new commercial, residential and utility work, and the newspaper tapped into the bidding and public notice process that brought that new work to construction companies. And that set the course for The Daily Reporter.

As the world made its history over the next century, the newspaper stayed true to its own. That's not to say it didn't evolve, but with all of the changes, new owners, ventures and projects, construction kept beating near the center of the newspaper's philosophy.

And then, around 1997, about 100 years since its inception, The Daily Reporter started to add an occasional third section of news to its publication. It was really just a blip in the history of the newspaper, but, somehow, it managed to gain a foothold in the imagination of The Daily Reporter's leadership.

Over the next three or four years, the third section began to appear every month, and it switched from a newspaper to magazine format and design. Then, at the beginning of 2002, we gave it a name, Wisconsin Builder.

Since then, we've been working to create a publication that honors the principle set forth by our founder, George Hall, in 1899, to "publish everything that will be of any possible benefit to all classes of business."

We've taken that goal to heart with you in mind, and it's no coincidence that we give you our business' best while honoring the best in your business with our A List.

So now, in August 2003, we submit to you, the industry that has walked with us through the last century, the first edition of the new Wisconsin Builder.