Trachte Buildings
By Michael Bridgeman
Trachte [1] buildings are a common site across the Madison area. Vintage Trachtes are easy-to-identify corrugated steel buildings with vertical walls and an arched roof [2] that were used as garages, utility sheds, gas stations, boathouses, or commercial buildings.
The Tinsmith
The venue for this month’s Historic Preservation Awards event, the Tinsmith (828 E. Main St.) is a 1925 Trachte building that has been repurposed as an event venue. The project received a 2021 award from the Madison Trust for adaptive reuse.
Photo: The Tinsmith website
They are plentiful here because the Trachte business was founded in Madison in 1901 when brothers George and Arthur Trachte opened a sheet metal shop on King Street. In 1912 the brothers patented a machine to simplify making steel livestock tanks and five years later erected their first steel building to house Arthur’s new car. Since 1985, the company has been headquartered in Sun Prairie where it designs, manufactures, and erects self-storage buildings. And this year, Trachte Building Systems is the presenting sponsor for the Madison Trust’s Historic Preservation Awards.
Trachte is exceptional in having a well-documented history, a rarity for most businesses. Here are three excellent sources to learn more:
Trachte’s company website has a helpful timeline that starts in 1899 when the Trachte brothers moved from Watertown to learn their trade as “tinners.” The timeline traces the Trachte story decade by decade.
Many early Trachte buildings were used as automobile service stations like the Beckman Garage seen here in the 1920s.
Image: Trachte website
In 1928, Trachte introduced the “modernistic cornice” for storefronts to capitalize on contemporary trends in streamline design.
Image: Trachte Steel Buildings catalog, 1938
A nine-minute video does a very good job of summarizing the Trachte story with the help of illustrations and animations that clarify the brothers’ innovations and building systems. The 2015 video features Ron Trachte, descendent of the founders.
The Trachte Brothers 1938 catalog included a bird’s-eye view of their manufacturing facility at 102 N. Dickinson St., which is largely comprised structures of their own making.
Image: Trachte Steel Buildings catalog, 1938
Much of the old Trachte plant on Dickinson and Mifflin streets still stands. The company moved to new facilities in Sun Prairie in 1985.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
An well-illustrated article in Historic Madison: A Journal of the Four Lakes Region recounts the Trachte story. The journal is available through public libraries that are part of the LINKcat system. Look for “Storage for a Century—Plus” in Volume XVII published in 2003.
Large clusters of vintage Trachte buildings are easy to spot on Madison’s east side industrial zone, which was well served by rail lines and spurs. They’re concentrated south of East Washington Avenue between downtown and the Yahara River and along the railroad tracks that parallel Pennsylvania Avenue.
This Research Products Corporation facility at 201 S. Brearly St. shows the flexibility of Trachte buildings and how they could be arranged, stretched, and stacked for a variety of industrial uses.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
The Trachte building system was flexible enough to accommodate small commercial operations such as restaurants, distributors, retailers, and auto-related businesses including filling stations and tire dealers. A handful of commercials buildings still stand on busy commercial streets in Madison
2037 Atwood Ave. | Photo: Michael Bridgeman
1213 Regent St. | Photo: Michael Bridgeman
When the now-red Trachte building (above left) opened in 1939 it was a hamburger stand called The Flash. By the 1950s it had been moved a few blocks to 2037 Atwood Ave. to become Vic’s Café and later a barbershop. [3] The parapet was an option offered by Trachte. The yellow-painted Trachte building (above right) at 1213 Regent St. was home to Franco’s Shoe Repair for many years. Both buildings are now vacant.
The first Trachte steel building was devised to protect Arthur Trachte’s new Dodge. Many vintage garages still stand, as I learned when I did an informal survey for an article I wrote for the Capitol Neighborhoods newsletter in 2016. Since they are usually at the back of narrow lots, Trachte garages can be easily overlooked. The best way to track them down is by walking or bicycling.
111 E. Gilman St. | Photo: Michael Bridgeman
110 S. Hancock St. | Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Most Trachte garages were for single cars, like the one at 111 E. Gilman St. (above left). Multi-car garages were also offered in Trachte catalogs, such as this four-car building behind 110 S. Hancock St . (above right).
In the 1950s, Bob Trachte and his cousin Len bought the business from the founding brother. “To me a business was like having a baby,” Bob said. “It was part of the family and I did everything I could to keep it going. You have to keep thinking. You think of things to build that will serve people.” [4] Over the years, that spirit guided Trachte into building small observatories; roofs for fast-food restaurants including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s, and Dairy Queen; and, since the 1970s, mini-warehouses. Self-storage facilities are now Trachte’s primary focus.
A detail from an undated promotional booklet [5] shows the kind of products that have shaped the last 50 years for Trachte, including buildings for the fast food industry and self-storage buildings.
Image: Trachte Building Systems
Any business that has been around for more than 100 years is doing something right. And while Trachte Building Systems has changed with the times and the marketplace, it is the vintage steel buildings that are most easily recognized in our area. While walking recently on the Great Sauk Trail in Prairie du Sac, I looked up and saw a classic Trachte building overlooking the Wisconsin River.
This vintage Trachte structure is behind a commercial building at 602 Water St. in Prairie du Sac. It is visible from the Great Sauk Trail which parallels the west bank of the Wisconsin River.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
It was a reminder that, as with so many things in the built environment, the more we look, the more we see.
Notes
[1] The company website helpfully tells us that the name is pronounced Trock-tee.
[2] Don’t confuse Trachtes with Quonset huts which have curved roofs that go all the way to the ground on their long sides.
[3] White, Sarah and Ann Waidlich. An East Side Album: A Community Remembers. (Madison, Wis.: Goodman Community Center), Second edition 2017.
[4] Trachte Building Systems: Storage for the Centuries. (Sun Prairie, Wis: Wisconsin Trachte Building Systems), ca 2001.
[5] Trachte Quality Metal Buildings. (Sun Prairie, Wis: Wisconsin Trachte Building Systems), ca 1985.