The history of Milwaukee's Allen-Bradley Clock Tower

The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower, located on South 2nd Street and just north of Greenfield Avenue, has been a staple of Milwaukee’s skyline and for decades was the largest four-sided clock tower in the world.

Sitting atop what is now Rockwell Automation, the 283-foot-tall clock was revealed on Halloween 1962. The clockworks were built by the Allen-Bradley company, which specialized in electrical controls.

The tower is four separate clocks running on individual motors. About once a month its gears require greasing, but it’s lit by LED bulbs that rarely need to be replaced.

Twice a year everyone moves their clocks forward or back an hour, usually by pushing a button. Changing the Allen-Bradley clock requires a security guard on the outside with a radio looking up at each face while someone with a special key turns four switches inside a room on the first floor.

In its early years it was referred to as the “Polish moon” because of the bright display in a predominantly Polish neighborhood. But over time more Mexican immigrants and families moved to the south side and the nickname was changed to the “Mexican moon” to recognize how the neighborhood has changed.

The clock also illuminated the fight against discrimination in labor in 1968, when the Latino and Black communities joined efforts to fight discriminatory hiring practices at the Allen-Bradley Company.

The protest was started by Father James E. Groppi. Younger Latino residents took up the cause and more activism against the company continued for another year. The march on Allen-Bradley is considered a success, given the consciousness it created and the progress Latinos in Milwaukee have made in the half-century since.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The history of Milwaukee's Allen-Bradley Clock Tower