Wisconsin Pavilion
The Wisconsin Pavilion is a modernist-style building at 1201 East Division Street in Neillsville, Wisconsin, United States. Designed by John Steinmann, it was erected for the 1964 New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, serving as the rotunda for the fair's Wisconsin exhibit. It was moved to Wisconsin in 1965, and has since functioned as a tourist center and as a broadcast studio for radio stations WCCN AM and FM since 1967. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The New York World's Fair Corporation invited the Wisconsin government to host an exhibit at the fair in 1961. Due to political disputes, the Wisconsin World's Fair Commission, which was tasked with organizing the state's world's fair exhibit, was not established until July 1963. After the WFC was unable to secure funding for the pavilion, two Wisconsin businessmen, Charles Sanders and Clark Prudhon, developed the structure with private funds. The pavilion opened behind schedule in 1964 and operated as a World's Fair exhibit for two years. Ivan Wilcox, a blacksmith from Boscobel, Wisconsin, bought the rotunda and shipped it back to Wisconsin. Howard Sturtz bought the building in 1966 and reassembled it in Neillsville; it was rededicated on July 13, 1967. The structure has been owned since the 1970s by the Grap family, who continue to operate the pavilion and radio stations in the 21st century.
The pavilion is a twelve-sided structure with six canopies, with a metal roof supported by slanted concrete piers. It is topped with a glass spire with letters spelling out the state's name. The interior contains offices, broadcast studios, and a gift shop and tourist center. It is surrounded by a landscaped lawn with a sunken rock garden. Located next to it is a fiberglass model of a talking cow named Chatty Belle, which measures tall and long.
Development
in Queens, New York, United States, hosted the 1964 New York World's Fair. New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses was president of the New York World's Fair Corporation, which leased the park from the government of New York City. Meanwhile, the state of Wisconsin had participated in multiple world's fairs in the U.S., beginning with the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. However, the Wisconsin government had not participated in the 1939 New York World's Fair, and it would not host a major world's fair exhibit until the 1964 fair.Initial plans and funding issues
The Wisconsin government was invited to join the 1964 World's Fair in 1961, and the Wisconsin Department of Resource Development's director David Carley brought up the idea of a Wisconsin exhibit at a meeting with officials from the New York World's Fair Corporation that October. By late 1961, officials from Michigan and Wisconsin proposed a joint exhibit at the fair, which would have been themed to the Great Lakes states. In November 1962, the New York World's Fair Corporation sent a telegram inviting John W. Reynolds Jr., the newly elected governor of Wisconsin, to participate in the 1964 New York World's Fair. Reynolds did not respond to the telegram, but Jack B. Olson, the state's lieutenant governor, did.The Wisconsin Legislature's upper house, the Wisconsin Senate, voted in April 1963 to create the World's Fair Participation Committee, a 16-person commission led by Olson, to oversee the development of an exhibit. The commission included representatives of several of Wisconsin's industries, and Reynolds was added as an honorary member. That May, the Wisconsin State Assembly approved the participation-committee bill, but Reynolds vetoed the bill because Olson, who was from a rival political party, led the committee. The Senate overrode Reynolds's veto, but the Assembly did not. Both houses approved a compromise solution in June 1963. As part of the compromise, Olson would lead the committee, but Reynolds would serve as an honorary chairman. Reynolds approved the compromise the next month, and the Wisconsin World's Fair Commission was formally established on July 11, 1963. The committee had until September 3 to decide whether to build the pavilion, and a site next to the United States Pavilion was set aside for the Wisconsin exhibit.
Both houses of the state legislature voted in May 1963 to allocate $35,000 for a block of cheese, and Reynolds approved the funding that June. Some of the cheese funding was taken from the state's department of conservation. The Wisconsin Cheese Foundation agreed to pay for the cheese and hired Steve Suidzinski of Denmark, Wisconsin, to manufacture the cheese. The piece of cheese was to be displayed on the pavilion's third floor, but the WFC discovered that the cheese was too heavy for the pavilion. That August, the Wisconsin WFC formed a nonprofit organization to sell space in the pavilion to Wisconsin businesses. The WFC approved a design by the architect Herbert Fritz. The initial design called for an domed structure with indoor and outdoor exhibition space and a cafe. At the end of the month, Olson reached out to several businesspeople to provide $1.2 million for the pavilion; the Department of Resource Development had not even contacted anyone for funding. Frank Zeidler, who led the Wisconsin Department of Resource Development, did not want the state government to sponsor the fair, saying the funds should be reallocated to the Wisconsin State Fair.
Prudhon and Sanders plans
The WFC downscaled its plans in September 1963 after failing to raise $1 million. By then, several companies from Wisconsin had leased space in the fair's other pavilions; According to Olson, these companies had decided not to move into a potential Wisconsin exhibit because of Reynolds's indecision. The WFC had considered canceling the pavilion outright, but an official from the Wisconsin Agriculture Department said the legislature had already allocated $35,000 for cheese. Despite the uncertainty, Olson signed an agreement that month, securing Wisconsin's participation in the fair. Fritz initially suggested that a tarp be erected above the block of cheese. Clark Prudhon, the president of Pruden Steel in Evansville, Wisconsin, agreed to develop the state's pavilion. Prudhon's plan called for a building of no more than, and Prudhon offered to pay for the structural frame, which would cost around $15,000. Prudhon hired John Steinmann, who had designed Pruden's offices, to design a Wisconsin pavilion.Amid the uncertainty, the WFC received at least a hundred offers for the pavilion's block of cheese, but Olson believed the cheese was a necessary part of the exhibit. Furthermore, although all structures at the World's Fair site were supposed to have been under construction by April 1963, the Wisconsin World's Fair Commission did not approve Steinmann's proposal until after this deadline. Despite the missed deadline, WFC officials convinced the New York World's Fair Corporation to approve the plans, saying that, since it used prefabricated materials, the Wisconsin Pavilion could be built much more quickly than other structures. The WFC continued to seek funding, having estimated that the pavilion needed another $300,000. Olson met with American Motors Corporation and Pabst Brewing Company officials in mid-September 1963 to ask for funds.
Charles Sanders, a manufacturing distributor from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, received the WFC's permission that October to reach out to potential investors. Sanders claimed he could build a building for $200,000. If the WFC approved Sanders's plan, Prudhon would donate the amount of steel that he would have originally used, while Sanders would pay for the rest of the pavilion's cost. That November, the WFC reorganized itself as the World's Fair Authority. The agency tentatively agreed to allow Sanders's group, Wisconsin Pavilions Inc., to develop the pavilion. Pruden Steel agreed to donate the structural forms for the pavilion, and the developers retained Steinman as the architect. Wisconsin Pavilions Inc. agreed to provide space for state agencies. Wisconsin Pavilions Inc. filed articles of incorporation on November 29, 1963, and Reynolds and Olson agreed the next month to transfer control of the project to Wisconsin Pavilions Inc. and allow construction to begin. The project was to financed entirely with private funding. In addition, companies from across Wisconsin sold construction materials and mechanical systems to Wisconsin Pavilions Inc. at a discount.
Construction
The Wisconsin exhibit's cheese, nicknamed the Golden Giant, was produced at Suidzinski's company in January 1964. After the cheese was completed, it was covered with paraffin wax. The Golden Giant was displayed in a "cheesemobile", consisting of a truck donated by the Ford Motor Company and a glass-walled trailer donated by the Highway Trailer Company. Thermo King supplied a refrigerator to keep the cheese cool. A state legislator introduced a bill to provide a property tax exemption for the cheese. Two semi-trailer trucks transported the construction materials from Wisconsin to New York. To promote the pavilion, a banner was displayed on the trucks outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.The site of the pavilion in New York was characterized in February 1964 as still being a "bare piece of ground". Olson indicated that the pavilion's rotunda would be moved to the Wisconsin State Fair after the World's Fair ended. Hartwig Displays completed a scale model of the pavilion that month, and Steinmann Associates created another scale model of the rotunda, which was displayed at two banks in Madison. Steel framing was being constructed by that March. The same month, Oscar Mayer became the first company from Wisconsin to agree to host an exhibit at the pavilion. The Golden Giant was supposed to have been transported to New York around April 8, but there were delays in constructing a concrete podium for the cheese. The Golden Giant had arrived in New York by April 21, shortly before the fair's opening. The building was ultimately finished 96 days after the materials arrived in New York. The original cost of the pavilion has been cited at around $100,000. The Boston Globe reported that the Wisconsin Pavilion's final cost was three times the original estimate.