The story of the Bucyrus Club is in many ways the story of South Milwaukee.
It starts in Ohio, as the Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company of Bucyrus, Ohio, was experiencing growing pains because they could not expand beyond their existing location. A delegation of City of South Milwaukee founders visited Bucyrus, and after protracted negotiations a contract was signed on October 3, 1891: Bucyrus would move from Ohio to Wisconsin. Eight acres were adjacent to the railroad tracks, five acres of building lots, and two acres of dock space on Lake Michigan. Bucyrus completed plans for the new factory in July 1892, and the Chicago construction firm of Whitney and Starings completed the first buildings by January of 1893.
The company would call South Milwaukee home for almost 120 years, building equipment used in many of the world’s most famous earth-moving projects.
Bucyrus purchased today’s Bucyrus Club building, in 1907 – 15 years after it was built. At first, it was home to companies that made furniture and firefighting equipment. As the West Shop, Bucyrus first used the building as manufacturing space and eventually as an employee club, converting a large single-story addition at the back into six bowling lanes and removing part of the third floor to create a combination gym and auditorium in which the stage could be quickly converted into a handball court.
The new club opened on Dec. 18, 1920.
Generations of workers and their families – and the South Milwaukee community as a whole – came to know this space as a hub for community activity.
According to OnMilwaukee.com: “You’d be hard pressed to find a South Milwaukee family that didn’t celebrate a wedding or a birthday, or attend a high school reunion or an awards ceremony, or even just eat a fish fry and play pinochle there. ‘The Club’ was a major focus of South Milwaukee social life for decades.”
Bucyrus sold the building in 1994, and it housed a community center and later a restaurant before the City of South Milwaukee purchased it in 2020. The Bucyrus Club & Event Center opened in 2021, following an extensive remodeling by CG Schmidt, with an award-winning design by Zimmerman Architectural Studios.
The building’s rich history comes alive throughout our venue and in the Bucyrus Museum upstairs.
After Bucyrus purchased the West Shop building in 1907, this space became the West Steam Engine Assembly Shop, where many of the steam engines for the shovels, cranes, pile drivers and dredges Bucyrus supplied to the Panama Canal were produced. It remained as a manufacturing area until 1919, when the building was remodeled and opened as the Bucyrus Club, with the assembly area being transformed into the employee cafeteria. Today, it is named after the year Bucyrus moved to South Milwaukee and features the original 1892 wooden beams and cast iron support saddles that were visible in the original assembly shop.
This wing was added as a machine shop in 1907 to supplement the large demand for Bucyrus steam shovels to fulfill the Panama Canal orders in backlog. It remained as a manufacturing area until the it, too, was transformed into the employee club. Today, the room features the original 1907 wooden beams that supported the driveline and crane structures in the original machine shop.
Today’s Founder’s Room restaurant (and adjoining event space) dates to 1907, when it was built as part of the machine shop addition. In 1920, this space became part of the Employee Club, functioning as an employee cafeteria, billiard room, and gathering spot and reading room for retirees, anchored by its distinctive fireplace.
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