Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the position of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, which is not requesting the bell and would be unlikely to accept it if offered.
An association of Wisconsin naval enthusiasts has asked the City of Wauwatosa to permanently loan a historic bell, now on display at Tosa's fire headquarters, to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc in honor of the state's naval history and to acknowledge construction underway on a new USS Wisconsin submarine.
The bell is currently posted prominently outside the Wauwatosa fire station's front door near the Underwood Avenue sidewalk. It is dated 1899 and was used on the original USS Wisconsin, a U.S. Navy battleship that served in World War I. After that boat was decommissioned, another battleship named for the state deployed during World War II, the Korean War and the Persian Gulf War.
The latest addition to the Badger State's nominal legacy, to be known officially as USS Wisconsin SSBN 827, is a Columbia ballistic submarine being built under federal contract in Groton, Connecticut, by General Dynamics Corp., according to the association that is requesting the bell on behalf of the museum.
"With 2025 being the 250th anniversary of our nation, the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy, and the 125th anniversary of our nation's Submarine Service, the citizens of Wauwatosa have a unique opportunity to honor their nautical artifact and link its history to the newest Wisconsin namesake warship," retired Capt. Jim Harvey, president of the USS Wisconsin SSBN 827 Association, said last month in a letter to Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride.
The association, which formed in 2021, is seeking to transfer Wauwatosa's historic bell in time for an Oct. 13 dedication in Manitowoc. The Wauwatosa Common Council's Community Affairs Committee is scheduled to discuss the request at its 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 meeting at City Hall and on Zoom.
UPDATE: The committee decided to table the issue for the next few months so it could be studied further.
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum, when reached later for comment, told Tosa Forward News that it had not requested the bell and likely would not accept the bell even offered, because it does not match internal criteria that items in its collection be either made in Wisconsin or related to the Great Lakes. Museum leaders have advised Harvey's group that other institutions might be more appropriate for relocating the bell.
The first USS Wisconsin was built by Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California, at a cost of $2.7 million, and commissioned in 1901, according to a historical plaque on display below the bell in Tosa. Weighing about 12,000 tons, the battleship could reach speeds of nearly 18 knots and was built to cary 43 officers, 56 marines and 735 other naval personnel.
For the next two decades, it deployed to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, including service in World War I, before it was decommissioned in 1920. The battleship's bell was purchased by noted Wauwatosa resident Frederick Underwood and given to the city in 1923.
Tosa's fire department used the bell for the next two decades to alert firefighters when there was an emergency, though it was put in storage in 1942 when the department moved to a new location, according to an On Milwaukee article about the department's history. Years later, the bell was installed at Wauwatosa's civic center, and when the fire department built a new headquarters on Underwood, the bell was transferred to its current location out front.
The new USS Wisconisn is expected to be commissioned around 2031. The association that formed in its name has a mission "to connect the people of Wisconsin with the ship's crew" and "to build Wisconsinite awareness of this new warship and its nautical heritage," including the two prior USS Wisconsin ships.
Harvey, in his letter to McBride, said the association just recently learned that Wauwatosa had the bell from the original USS Wisconsin. If given on loan, the bell could be used as a central artifact in a historical exhibit about the three USS Wisconsins and "enlighten Wisconsinites of the rich nautical role this state has played in building our great nation," Harvey wrote.
