The Daily Reporter | A History of Construction | Building from a strong foundation

The birth of Wisconsin's construction industry

A look at the Roaring '20s and before

By Dick Snow

The roots of Wisconsin’s construction industry were actually imported from Europe as English, German, Italian, French and Irish flocked to the New World.

With them came construction skills emanating from the days of craftsmen guilds in far away countries. Those skills were traditionally passed down from fathers to sons, nephews and cousins.

The fact is most of those artisans of yesteryear worked with the tools of their trade before, during and after they became contractors. And a large number of those craftsmen immigrated to Wisconsin.

Believe it or not, a handful of today's general contracting firms did begin operations in the early days of the Wisconsin industry, and they are in the more-than-80-years-old category.

A few that immediately come to mind are The Bentley Company; J.H. Findorff & Son; The Boldt Company; Hunzinger Construction; J.P. Cullen & Sons; Klug & Smith Company; CG Schmidt Inc.; The Hoffman Corporation; Miron Construction Company; Selzer-Ornst Company; T.V. John & Son Inc.; Dahlman Construction; The Selmer Company; Jos. Schmitt & Sons; Steigerwald Construction Company; Edward E. Gillen Company; and A.J. Heinen.

It is generally accepted that Bentley is the oldest at 153 years, having been formed in 1848, the same year Wisconsin won statehood. Cullen, Findorff, Boldt, Hoffman, Selmer, Schmitt and Gillen also make up the Century Club of Contractors.

Many of the above-named are in their fourth and even fifth generation of family ownership that falls under the general description of a closely held business.

Building a foundation

Generally speaking, these firms in the 1920s and before built virtually all of the buildings that became the foundation for Wisconsin's urban areas. And many of those buildings are still standing.

For instance, on two sides of a downtown Milwaukee block on Michigan Street, between Water Street and Broadway, all of the buildings are 100-plus years old and are still commercially active, including 225 E. Michigan, which houses The Daily Reporter.

The campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison contains several buildings that are more than a century old, such as North and South Halls, the Music Hall and the original Engineering Building at the foot of Park Street. Ditto the Stock Pavilion on the Ag Campus to the west.

The original state Capitol was built shortly after Wisconsin became a state, and it burned down and was re-built during this period. Ironically, one of the Century Club members, J.P. Cullen, just completed a lengthy makeover/upgrade of the Capitol. The original building contained the governor's office, state Supreme Court, both houses of the Legislature and all state agencies.

Doing it by hand

During the "Roaring '20s" and before, there was a tremendous amount of handwork, and the construction industry was certainly labor-intensive. Spades, saws, hammers and chisels were major tools of choice. Hod carriers transported bricks, and mortar was mixed by hand.

Early on, trucks were a luxury and mules were often put into play hauling wagons. Steam shovels did excavation work, and materials were hauled to upper levels with a pulley arrangement.

Jerry-built scaffolding was insecure and accidents were frequent. By today's standards, construction was a very dangerous occupation, but the work did get done, and those buildings stand today as a testament to the craftsmanship of the period.

Supervision of work was handed to the guys who could literally beat up on others and did not necessarily rely on intelligence.

It was during this period that contractors began to organize trade associations to deal with mutual problems. The earliest organization was the Concrete Contractors Association of Milwaukee, which started in 1912. Then, when Woodrow Wilson sought to organize the construction world in 1919 for expediting military construction efforts during World War I, the Concrete Contractors coalesced into the national organization that became the Associated General Contractors of America.

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