On July 29, 1898, the Johnson Electric Service Company signed a contract with the State Historical Society of Wisconsin amounting to $3,175 for a system of temperature regulation in the new “historical library” being built on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. The Wisconsin Historical Society was founded in 1846, two years before Wisconsin’s statehood. By the late 1890s, the Society’s collections had outgrown its storage space, and the University’s library was in a similar predicament.

The solution proposed by the University president and the Society’s director was a single building serving both. The state legislature approved, and construction began on the University’s lower campus. Built in the neoclassical revival architectural style, a design strongly associated with civic buildings, the society’s headquarters was completed and dedicated in the fall of 1900. The building continues today to house the headquarters of the Wisconsin Historical Society and its extensive collections.