In the years followingthe Civil War, Scottish immigrant Alexander Mitchell had become a banker,railroad magnate and grain-trade backer of nearly sovereign power in Milwaukee. He was, as The Making of Milwaukee author JohnGurda describes, “an emperor of capital whose authority was beyond question.”He and his wife, Martha, had a preference for opulence, a trait expressed inboth their residence and Alexander's business enterprises. In addition toheading Wisconsin's largest bank (Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance CompanyBank) and largest railroad (Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad), he also ranthe largest marine and fire insurance firm in the West: Northwestern NationalInsurance. In 1876, he decided to bring them all together under one lavishroof. He hired leading architect Edward Townsend Mix to design a six-storystone commercial building in the French Second Empire style, aptly named the Mitchell Building.
Mitchell was aware theChamber of Commerce, the neighbor directly east of his new building, wasunhappy in its cramped digs. So he offered to tear down its existing structure,build a new and improved building, and lease it to the Chamber long-term.Designed by Mix and completed in 1880, the focal point of the new Chamber of CommerceBuilding was a three-story commodity trading room called the Grain Exchangethat contained a sunken, tiered trading “pit” where the price of wheat was set.Modeled after the one in the previous Chamber of Commerce building, thistrading floor pit is thought to have been the first one ever constructed.
According to Gurda, theroom was among “the most lavishly decorated public spaces in the region.”Commissioned by local artists, the ceiling and walls were adorned withfrescoes, murals and wall paintings that shared the theme of industry,transportation, agriculture, trade and commerce. Colossal faux-marble pillarsboasted gilded capitals with carved depictions of locomotives and steamships.At the center of the ceiling was a skylight surrounded by frescoes of wheatsheaf medallions and Wisconsin wild flowers.
In the face ofdiminished market activity, grain trading ceased at the Chamber of Commercebuilding in 1935. After World War II, the old Grain Exchange Room was given afalse ceiling and subdivided into offices. The two-story space above theceiling fell into serious disrepair. In 1981, the Ashley family began intensiverestoration of the Grain Exchange. It took two years to recreate the murals,frescoes, plasterwork, woodwork, faux-marbling and other features that made theGrain Exchange so stunning during Milwaukee'sterm as the world's wheat capital.
