Mitchell Park Domes, Milwaukee's 'astrodomes for nature,' replaced a crumbling conservatory

(Editor's note: This is a revised and updated version of a story that first ran Feb. 14, 2016.)

They were such a symbol of the future that the president's point person on the environment compared them to America's premier space-age icon.

The Mitchell Park Domes are "Milwaukee's exciting new astrodomes for nature," first lady Ladybird Johnson said at a dedication ceremony on Sept. 21, 1965, according to a Milwaukee Sentinel story chronicling her visit.

These days, Milwaukee's symbol of the future faces an uncertain present.

Following more than a decade of discussions and stopgap repairs, the crumbling Domes are at a crossroads.

This month, the Milwaukee County Parks Department outlined several options for the Domes, from demolishing them and building something new to fixing what's still there. The price tags ranged from $4.78 million to $6.4 million to demolish all three domes to up to $91.15 million to restore all three structures.

County Supervisor Steven Shea called the dollar amounts "stomach-tightening."

"Unless we get some spectacularly magnificent donation from some wealthy benefactor, I really don't see how we can move forward on any of these other than (demolition), and I absolutely hate to say that, because I love the Domes … but these costs are just frightening," Shea said.

Milwaukee had the same conversations 80 years earlier, when the Domes' predecessor began showing its age.

Built in 1898 for nearly $27,000, Mitchell Park's original horticultural conservatory was a prime Milwaukee attraction for half a century.

But by the mid-1940s, that prime attraction was falling apart.

In a July 24, 1946, story, The Milwaukee Journal reported that although the Mitchell Park conservatory was "probably the most frequented spot in the county park system," not much had been done to improve its condition since the county took over the park from the city in 1937.

In 1949, the Parks Commission directed planners to come up with a plan for a new conservatory. But nothing much happened, and the building continued to crumble.

"Because of the disintegration of the building material, due to erosion and longevity, may I again call your attention to the fact that these houses (the greenhouses) are unsafe," Howard Brossman, botanical supervisor at the Mitchell Park conservatory, wrote in a report quoted by the Journal in an April 11, 1954, story.

A year after that report — which noted that 40 panes of glass had been blown out in a windstorm and that the buildings were no longer waterproof nor insulated enough to protect the plants inside — the County Board voted to close the conservatory. It was razed soon after, and talk of building a new conservatory began.

In 1957, the county finally chose a local architect — future-minded Donald Grieb — and set aside about $400,000 for plans for a $1 million conservatory.

By early 1958, the cost of the project — three large glass domes, 78 feet tall and 140 feet wide, with 115,000 square feet of glass — was estimated at $2.4 million. Before the end of the year, the estimate had jumped to more than $3.3 million, or more than $34 million in 2023 dollars.

Construction began in the spring of 1959, with the first dome to open by 1964. And it did — just barely.

It opened to the public on Dec. 12, 1964. By the time the five-week floral Christmas show was over, it had been attended by 155,292 people, The Journal reported on Jan. 11, 1965.

Brossman told The Journal about a woman at one of the early showings at the new dome. She had tears in her eyes.

"Brossman asked her if something was wrong. 'No,' she replied. 'It is just so beautiful!' "

The dome, now called the Show Dome, was the first; the other two, the Desert and Tropical domes, were part of the dedication ceremony starring Johnson in the fall of 1965, although neither was open for business yet.

At the ribbon-cutting, Johnson called them "an exciting new dimension in dramatizing nature for the people of Milwaukee and their visitors all year round," according to the Sentinel.

It was more than two years before that new dimension was three-dimensional, however.

The second dome, the Tropical Dome, opened Jan. 29, 1966 — good timing, since the city was in the grip of a brutal cold snap, posting a high temperature that day of 6 below.

The Desert, or Arid, Dome was the last to open, on Nov. 4. 1967. The Journal's Avery Wittenberger reported on Dec. 18, 1966, that the final dome's debut, due in early 1967, had been pushed back in part because of "slowness in building the simulated stone formations that will be a major feature of the arid house."

According to the Sentinel story announcing the final dome's debut, the total cost of the Domes project had reached $4.4 million — the equivalent of about $39 million today, somewhere between the estimated costs of repairing all three domes and restoring them.

Vanessa Swales of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee's Mitchell Park Domes replaced a crumbling conservatory, too