Wisconsin Gas Company

The Wisconsin Gas Building is under new management and they are working hard to spruce things up. The exterior planters have fresh and beautiful flowers. New security cameras are being installed. Some new seating and flowers have been placed in the lobby. The coolest thing however has been the polishing of all the brass trimmings and fixtures. This always beautiful building is really shining with all the face lifting!

This beautiful Art Deco building was constructed by the Milwaukee Gas Light Company in late 1929 and opened in 1930. It was constructed in a remarkable nine months! The building designed by a premier Milwaukee architectural firm, Eschweiler & Eschweiler. The design of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company building includes different materials to enhance the appearance. The first two floors are clad with Coldstone granite from Minnesota, starting with the third floor, bricks are progressively lighter in color toward the top of the building. The cornices of the setbacks and the upper floors use Milwaukee’s famous Cream City brick to make the Art Deco styled building seem taller and sunnier.
Beautiful copper sculptured panels adorned the spandrels and large bronze doors served the main entrance. All the artful works proclaimed the building to be the headquarters of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company. In 1966, with the era of gas lights lost for decades, the company changed its name to Wisconsin Gas Company. All the identifying marks of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company were removed at that time, and sadly, were lost.
In 2001, the Wisconsin Gas Company was acquired by WICOR, the holding company that also owned Wisconsin Electric Company. The two firms that had been bitter rivals for so many decades were now under the same ownership. Employees of the old gas company, today known as WE Energies, were moved out of the building and merged into the WE Energies facilities.
The Wisconsin Gas Company building was sold to a private developer, who found and restored the copper sculptures as well as the bronze entrance doors. The building is partially occupied and space is available for lease.
In 1956, a large sign was added to the peak of the roof top. The sign is in the shape of a gas flame and was added primarily to promote the use of gas for cooking and heating. It was also lit at night to make weather forecasts. The flame is lit with neon and will show red, blue or gold, either solid or flashing. Several mnemonics were published over the years to help viewers remember the key to interpreting the forecast, such as this one:
When the flame is red, it’s warm weather ahead!
When the flame is gold, watch out for cold!
When the flame is blue, there’s no change in view!
When there’s a flickering flame, expect snow or rain!
For many years, Wisconsin Gas Company sponsored weather forecasts on a local television station. At the end of the forecast, a slide of the lit flame was shown on screen with the personality stating the flame on top of the Gas Company Building was blue, red or gold and explain what that meant. Since it was a slide, with no animation, if the flame was flashing to indicate precipitation in the forecast, the station simply flashed the entire slide off and on, so the entire building went dark, too!
The flame was visible for miles and was even used as a navigational aid by ships on Lake Michigan. As taller buildings began to surround the Wisconsin Gas Company Building and weather forecasts became readily available from radio and television, the flame lost its significance as a weather forecasting tool. In 1973, at the peak of the energy crisis, the light was extinguished. It returned to use in 1985.
The current owner of the building maintains the tradition, and the gas flame shines from sundown to midnight every night.
(Author’s note, a similar sign predicts weather on the roof of the American Trust and Savings Bank in Dubuque, Iowa. It is a tower, not a gas flame!)