Wisconsin Journal

Number 22

14 March 1998



Our most recent Wednesday trip took us to the town of Monroe, which

is near the Illinois border. Our first stop was the Alp and Dell

cheese factory. It makes about 28 different kinds of cheeses at

different times of year, but its speciality is various Swiss styles

of cheeses, including a truly wonderful Gruyere. If you ever see

"Grand Cru" brand Gruyere at a cheese store, buy some, especially

if they have any pieces from an aged wheel. Gruyere is a complicated

cheese to make. It requires a copper kettle for heating the milk,

because it produces a chemical reaction important for the flavor

of the cheese. However, copper kettles are not normally allowed for

cheesemaking by the USDA, since they have a porous surface, unlike

stainless steel. Usually the only way you can have a copper kettle

is if your cheese factory has been using one since before the

regulations were put in force. Alp & Dell managed to get permission

to install a new $65,000 copper-lined vat for Gruyere making, though

it means that they no longer have a USDA-approved facility.



After the cheese is curdled, cooked and drained, it goes into square or

round forms for pressing. For Gruyere, the forms must sit on red spruce

boards. Once the wheels and loaves are formed, they are regularly

smeared with a bacterial mixture and allowed to ripen. The next step

is soaking for a while in a 20% solution of brine, which helps stop the

fermentation. We could see wheels and bricks of various cheeses bobbing

in the brine tanks, and the cheesemakers herding a bunch of them to one

end of the tank to make room for more at the other. After the soak

comes the aging, which has to be at least three months for Gruyere,

but is usually longer.



That day we also saw the cheesemakers filling hoops for some kind of

soft cheese, with the curds being blown in through what looked like

a vacuum-cleaner hose. We also talked to one of the plant managers,

who seemed like an escapee of a 60s commune. He had helped get the

plant going 18 years ago, after another owner had gone defunct. He was

the one who explained to us about copper kettles, and mentioned

something about hot-tubbing in the cheese vats in the early days.



>From the cheese factory we headed to downtown Monroe to look around.

The old downtown is situated around a square with a great brick and

stone courthouse in the center. (The layout is very similar to Baraboo.)

The parking meters in Monroe take pennies--12 minutes for one cent,

an hour for a nickel. We splurged and spent a dime. It only took us

about 45 minutes to check out the square, so I guess we donated six

cents to the city coffers. We stopped in New Glarus on the way back

to eat at the Glarner Stube. My favorite dish was a side of sauerkraut

with onion cream sauce. Kaye liked her mashed potatoes, which were

made by waving a potato skin over a dish of cream, sour cream and butter.

The Glarner Stube claims to have the largest urinal in the Midwest,

and you can buy postcards of it (right in the men's room, if you have

exact change).



The big treat came the next week. It was break at UW, and Kaye and

I headed off for two nights at the American Club in Kohler, which is

the only AAA five-diamond hotel in Wisconsin. More about its history

in a bit. We drove up to Fond du Lac, then headed due east to Sheboygan,

which is on the shore of Lake Michigan, maybe 50 miles north of

Milwaukee. Along the way we saw the Plank Road Trail, which follows

the route of the wooden roadway that was built from Fond du Lac to

Sheboygan shortly after the Erie Canal was finished and provided a

Great Lake route to New York City. Sheboygan advertises itself as the

Bratwurst capital of the world, so that's what I had for lunch, at

a restaurant with an indoor charcoal grill. After lunch we visited

the Kohler Art Center, located in the Italinate Kohler family house

downtown. The museum specializes in folk art and art of "isolate,

self-taught" artists. A good portion of the permanent collection is

devoted to one such artist, Eugene von Bruenchenheim of Milwaukee,

who filled his house with sculptures constructed of chicken bones,

crowns made from found clay, and pictures painted with brushes from

locks of his wife's hair stuck in soda straws. There was also a

wonderful "shoe horse"---some kind of animal made by a Texas artist

using cast-off shoes, mostly cowboy boots.



One of the temporary exhibits was the Five-County Art Show, featuring

artists from that region of the state. The other was an installation

constructed by a visiting artist with the help of 600 school children.

Kind of a tea-party from fantasy land. There was a table and chairs

decorated various ways---pom poms, feathers, decorated yarn cones.

Near the fireplace were two robot-like figures made from soda bottles,

one holding a branch with a marshmallow on every stem. The hearth

was made of tiles that had been decorated by individual kids.

Lots of other decorated items around the room: presents, birds,

fish. I thought it was great.



>From there, we drove along the shoreline of the lake, and saw the

wreck of the Lottie Cooper, a sailing ship from the last century

brought up from the lake bottom. We then drove along the Sheboygan

River, which is being redeveloped into restaurants and shops. However,

some of the buildings are still working fishing shanties, and you

can see the nets and net dryers by them. There were a couple fishing

boats tied up while we were there. One was taking on wood and huge

chunks of coal (for heat--I'm sure they have diesel engines), the

other was unloading its catch, lake perch, I think. This style of

boat is unique to the Great Lakes, I believe. There is no exterior

deck space to speak of--the bulkheads go straight up from the gunwales.

There are doors aft to let out and retrieve nets, and the forward

part is used to clean the fish on board. We saw one of these boats

come into the river off the lake, precipitating the densest swarm

of seagulls I've ever seen. Presumably they were after the leavings

from fish cleaning.



>From Sheboygan it was off to Kohler, about four miles away. Kohler

was founded by John Michael Kohler in the 1890s. J.M. Kohler immigrated

from Austria to Sheboygan with his parents when he was 10 years old

(in 1854). As a young man, he worked in an iron foundry that made

farm equipment, such as plows, power take-offs (to use horse power

to drive farm machines), and feed cutters. He eventually rose to be

principal in the firm, buying out the interest of other owners. He

moved the plant from Sheboygan because he felt he didn't have room

for expansion there. Some of the plant workers and managers started

building houses around the new factory. The town was then called

Riverview, and was laid out haphazardly. J.M. Kohler died in 1900,

and was eventually succeeded as president by Walter J. Kohler, Sr.,

who ran the company from 1905-1937. (I had a hard time keeping the

exact relationship between all the Kohlers straight. While you might

imagine the presidency would pass from first son to first son, sometimes

the first son died at an early age. In addition, J.M. Kohler had

children by two wives (who were sisters).) Walter Sr. thought his

employees deserved a nice town to live in. He retained a Milwaukee

architect, and they set out to tour industrial villages in Europe.

When he returned, he hired the Olmstead brothers (designers of

Central Park and the Harvard campus) to lay out the town of Kohler,

and provide a 50-year development plan. However, Kohler isn't actually

a company town. While there are strict covenants on housing styles

and materials, Walter, Sr. encouraged private ownership of homes, via

selling them at cost and company-financed loans. Further, upper and

middle management are not allowed to hold town office. Our guide on

the tour we took said he bought a house in 1941 when earning $54 a week.



The Kohlers have been active in Republican politics in Wisconsin for

a long time. Walter, Sr., as well as Walter, Jr., served as governor

of Wisconsin. The current CEO of the Kohler companies is Herbert V.

Kohler, Jr.



The American Club was the centerpiece of the town design. It is a

gabled brick building that housed single workers, located across

from the front entrance to the plant. For a modest price, workers got

room, board and "simple washing". It also provided a gathering place

for the town, with a 4-lane bowling alley, a taproom and pool tables.

The emphasis of the American Club was Americanization, and immigrant

craftsmen were urged to become citizens at the first opportunity.

American flags were displayed prominently, and evening classes offered

in English and civics. Employees going to get naturalized got the

day off at full pay and were feted at a celebration. There were a

few changes over the years. The dining room was panelled and converted

to the Wisconsin Room, used for official company functions. The

bowling alley was moved from below it to the tap room, and that space

became a cafeteria, open to lodgers and other employees. One wing

was set aside as the "Teachery", where single school teachers lived.



However, by the 1970s, there were only 70 residents left. The club

was by then on the Register of Historic Places, so tearing it down

wasn't a good option. The Kohler company decided to turn it into a

resort hotel, and renovations took place from 1978-81. The cafeteria

and laundry became the Immigrant Room and Winery, which features

contemporary cuisine. The Wisconsin Room is also a restaurant,

with more traditional fare. (Kaye and I ate there twice, once off

the regular menu and the second time for the seafood buffet.) The

tap room is a bar and grill, but, alas, the bowling alleys are no

more. (They were in use by company bowling leagues right up to

the renovations.) Underground parking and meeting space were added,

as were several new wings of rooms, but with great attention to

preserving the orignal style. The library has been restored to

its original condition, and tea is served there every afternoon.



Rooms come in all sizes, ranging from "merely expensive" to "second-

mortgage time". Each is named after a noteworthy American, and features

pictures and documents related to the person. Of course, all the

plumbing fixtures are Kohler, and every bath has some kind of whirlpool

tub. My favorite feature was the flourescent lighting *under* the

platorm bed. I guess it's supposed to help you find your way to the

bathroom at night. Our room looked out on a courtyard, and I spent

much of our second afternoon there reading by the window and watching

it snow. Real pleasant place to stay.



However, the American Club wasn't the most important reason for visiting

Kohler. What really attracted me was the opportunity to visit the

Kohler factory. They give a serious tour. It starts at 8:30am, lasts

almost three hours and involves a couple miles of walking. Guides,

who seem all to be retired employees, take groups of 3-4 visitors

through the pottery, brass foundry and iron foundry. You aren't up

on catwalks or behind glass partitions--you get right down on the

factory floor, dodging forklifts carrying bathtubs and crucibles of

molten iron. We wore safety glasses and wireless headphones; our

guide had a wireless mike. Unfortunately, our guide seemed to have

a respiratory problem, which meant he talked in very compressed bursts

and we got to hear him wheezing through our head phones every time

we went up some stairs. He had joined the company in 1937, and worked

as a supervisor in fixture packing for 28 years, then was a night

watchman for 15. He knew how many steps were in every flight of stairs.



Our first stop was the pottery, which is the largest in the world.

We entered at the beginning of the process, where toilets, lavatories

(sinks) and urinals were being slip-cast. The slip (liquid clay) goes

into the plaster molds at 6:30am. After a couple hours, the slip

next to the mold sets up to a leathery consistency, and the rest of

the slip is drained out, leaving hollows in the piece. If, for example,

a urinal were made of solid porcelain, it would explode when fired in

the kiln. Around 9am, when we came through, the molds are being removed.

Some of the molds, such as for lavatories, had just a few pieces,

whereas other fixtures had a dozen or more. What surprised us was

the amount of handwork involved. There is no assembly line here.

Each piece being cast is at a separate station, and workers move

between them, removing molds, trimming the clay, smoothing out any

rough spots and sometimes "cementing" in extra little pieces such

as stiffeners or overflow tubes. Toilet bowls are complicated enough

that they have to be cast in two pieces--the rim and everything else--

then are attached by running a bead of soft clay around the base with

a pastry bag and setting the rim onto it. This part of the pottery

is heated to 80 degrees, to promote drying, and almost everyone was

in shorts, even though it was snowing outside.



The cast fixtures move on racks suspended from an overhead rail into

the glazing and firing section. Here the fixtures are allowed to

dry for a couple of days before glazing. (Note to Mom: There isn't

any bisque firing before high firing. They glaze the greenware directly.)

There are lots of glazing boths, some automated, some manual. It

looked like most of the glaze was sprayed on, rather than painting or

dipping. Kaye noticed a sign over one of the glazing booths: "Do Not

Spray Raspberry or Merlot in this Booth." It doesn't refer to someone

being sloppy with his or her lunch. Rather, Raspberry Puree and Merlot

are two colors of glaze, which I gather tend to easily contaminate

other colors of glaze. Once glazed, the pieces are stacked on 4-by-

8-foot wagons, up to about 6 or 7 feet high. The whole wagon is

pushed into one end of a long, gas-fired kiln. The kiln holds 60

wagons end to end, and operates continuously. A wagon takes about

36 hours to move through the kiln, pushed ahead by ones being loaded

behind it, each shoved in by a hydraulic ram.



Once the pieces leave the kiln and cool down, they are inspected.

In the case of a toilet bowl, the test involves pumping water

through it to make sure there are no leaks or blockages. We

were suprised by how many pieces we saw set aside for rework throughout

the plant. Rework might mean touching up the glaze and refiring,

or grinding off rough spots on the unglazed part. Once they are

inspected, some pieces have fittings added (though things like

faucets and taps are sold separately) and some have designs applied

as decals, which then have to be fired again. Applying the decals

looked like an exacting job. We also also saw other small pieces

of porcelain, such as inserts for faucet handles and "floor containers"

(a porcelain wastebasket in the same shade as your sink).



One real cool program that Kohler sponsers, along with the art museum

in Sheboygan, is artists in residence. Each year over 300 artists

apply and a couple of dozen are selected. They are given workspace

right on the factory floor and access to all the materials and

facilities, in order to create their works of art. We saw the work

area in the pottery and also in the iron foundry. The artists get

technical help from the factory workers, and must leave behind one

piece for the company and one for the art museum. Museum staff members

help pack the finished works to ship back to the artists (which they

do via the very low freight rates that Kohler has negotiated with

different carriers). We saw some works in progress, plus some of

the finished pieces in Kohler's collection. Several of the pottery

pieces started with normal pluming fixtures (bathtub-fountain; toilet

with leaves). I guess that genre was started by R. Mutt (Marcel

Duchamp). The cast iron pieces were notable mostly for their

scale, but I really liked one that appeared to be a wooden chair, but

was really solid iron.



We next visited the brass foundry, where they make spigots, taps,

drains, Jacuzzi ports and other fancy bits of metal that attach

to plumbing fixtures. Most of the work is cast, but some faucet

inserts are milled from brass bar stock. We saw the process kind of

backwards. First we saw men polishing the cast fittings, and racks

of fittings going through the plating process. Most of the plating

was chrome, but some high-end fixtures are gold plated. Then we saw the

actual casting. While some items are made on highly automated lines,

we also saw men dipping molten brass in ladles in some places. Some

of the most interesting artifacts were the manifolds made of pressed

sand and rosin, which are the cores that form the voids in faucets

and other pieces. (I couldn't figure out what they were at first, since

I'm not used to seeing a negative in a positive form.) They fit inside

the mold, and are shaken loose after the casting cools. I'm not sure

why the sand doesn't come apart during the casting process and float

to the top of the mold, but it doesn't. For some of the fancier pieces,

a laser is used to etch the Kohler name.



The final part of the tour was the iron foundry. This is where bathtubs

are made, and heavy-duty sinks, along with valve casings and engine

blocks. (Kohler makes small engines.) The amazing thing here is that

each item made has a one-time mold. The molds are pressed out of

"green sand" (looked black to me) held together with a binder.

The process for casting a bathtub is roughly this. You start with

steel positives of the inside and outside of the tub. A steel

frame is filled with green sand and then rammed with the steel positive

to make each half of the mold. The mold for the bottom of the tub

(which is actually on top during casting) also gets slots indented

into the other side through which the iron is poured. The frames

are pulled off the steel positives. Amazingly, the sand keeps its

shape, as a negative of the tub. Then these two molds, called the

cope and the flask, are mated. Even more amazing, one of the molds

gets flipped over, and the sand doesn't fall out. After the inverted

half is set over the other half, the two frames are clipped together,

and a 4-wide gang of ladles is used to pour molten iron in through

the slots. Pretty soon the binder volatilizes and catches fire,

sending flames shooting out through holes in the steel frame. After

cooling for a minute or two, the frame are uncoupled, the top one

is lifted up, the bathtub is hoisted free, and sand from the molds

is knocked loose and sent down a chute in the floor. This whole

process takes place on kind of a merry-go-round that carries the

frame through the various stages of the process.



But you don't have a bathtub yet. After the remaining sand is blown

off, and any rough spots ground down, the tub gets enameled. Enameling

requires heating the tub in a furnace until it glows red, then

sprinkling powdered enamel over it, and putting it back in the furnace

to fuse the enamel. Then a second coat goes on. For the most common

style bathtubs, this process is automated, with robots arms applying

the enamel. (They reminded Kaye and I of elephant trunks.)  However,

a lot of enameling is done manually. Manual hoists (kind of like

teeter-totters on wheels with a big fork on the end) are used to move

sinks and tubs in and out of a furnace, and a person applies the

enamel, using an electric sifter on the end of a rod. Enameling is

the best paying job in the factory. You have to stand near 1200-degree

castings and apply an even coat of enamel. You get to wear an aluminized

arm and shoulder cover to reflect the heat, but given the heat I could

feel 30 feet from the furnace, I suspect it mostly just keeps your

skin from bursting into flame. I wonder if those guys have any

eyebrows.



After enameling, the pieces are inspected. Rough spots in the enamel

can be ground and polished. Thin spots have to be refired. Sinks

are checked with little shims to see if they will actually sit

flush to a countertop. On the way out of the building, we passed

through the area where whirlpool tubs are fitted with pumps and

plastic pipes. They, too, are tested, being filled with water and

run for 20 minutes.



That brought our tour to a close. We turned in our safety glasses and

headsets, and went back to the American Club for lunch. We then

walked up the street to the Kohler Design Center. The main floor and

loft features current Kohler products, while the basement is a museum

on the family, town and company. I was impressed by the two-story

wall of sinks and toilets, and all the different kinds of whirlpools.

Some had gold-plated faucets that cost as much as the rest of the tub.

We saw showers with waterfalls and massage jets---the successor to the

master bath at the Pittock Mansion, for those of you in Portland.

Kaye got to see how an auto-flushing urinal works. There are also

small exhibits of furniture and tile from companies that Kohler had

bought. The loft featured bathrooms and kitchen by interior designers

using Kohler products. Not all the designs seemed real practical. Do

you want a punching bag next to the shower, or leather-bound books

overlooking the bathtub? Maybe Kaye and I are too conservative, but

we didn't really go for faucet handles that would snag your sleeve

or require dental tools to clean.



The exhbits downstairs explained how Kohler got into the plumbing

fixture business. J.M. enameled a horse trough/hog scalder in 1883,

and mentioned in the advertizing that it could be used as a bathtub,

with optional legs. The first one was sold to a farmer for that purpose.

In 1891 they added sinks. The company bought a pottery in New Jersey

and moved it in 1927, and started making toilet bowls and porcelain

sinks. Since Victorian times, tubs and sinks had rims made of wood.

An early toilet that Kohler sold had a wood water tank on the back.

However, the woold trim was not very sanitary, and Kohler started

making pieces with molded on rims. One of their early innovations was

the 1-piece tub with front apron, meant to be built in rather than

free standing. We also saw an early 7-8 foot kitchen unit with two

sinks and a built-in dishwasher.



Colored fixtures came in 1927, with company chemists perfecting

color-matching technology so your porcelain sink would match your

enameled tub. There was a display of tiles showing which year each

color was introduced. Some interesting ones were Black (1929), Tuscan

(1929), Cerulean Blue (1938), Jade (1965), Antique Red (1965),

Avocado (1967), Tiger Lily (1967), Harvest Gold (1968) [the previous

three also served as names of women's bowling teams], "Black Black"

(1972), Almond (1981, currently the second most popular color after

white), Raspberry Puree (1984), Teal (1987), Vermont Blue (1989),

Cobalt Blue (1991) and Merlot (1991). So now you can go home and

figure out when your bathroom was last remodeled. Fixtures done in

Black were featured at a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition in

1929.



Whirlpool tubs where introduced in 1977, and the fancy Artist Editions

came in 1986. In the past, Kohler also made radiators (for heating)

and electric generators for farms. They still make generator sets,

focusing mostly on back-up power systems. During WWII the plant was

converted to make shells and torpedos. From 1968-1976 Kohler made a

snowmobile engine, whose design was the basis for a small racing engine

that they still make. More recently, the company has branched out

into real estate and golf courses (including a "Scotland-style" one

on the shore of Lake Michigan), and has plants and subsidiaries in

France, Morocco and China.



About the only site we didn't see in Kohler was the reconstruction of

the family ancestral home in Austria. We headed home via Port Washington,

where we had a great lunch of lake perch.



I've gone on quite a while here. Everyone reading this on company time,

back to work!



--Dave