O Christmas Tree!
The Milwaukee Christmas Tree has been displayed at various locations downtown, and it hasn’t always been a single tree over the decades, but its lighting ceremony continues as a community yuletide tradition.
The City of Milwaukee unveiled its first Community Christmas Tree on Dec. 24, 1913, and its lighting drew 15,000 spectators. The Christmas tree was a composite made from several trees fastened to scaffolding and installed in the Grand Avenue Court of Honor, a median on Wisconsin Ave. near the Milwaukee Public Library.
Over the years, the Community Christmas Tree has been erected in MacArthur Square, the Civic Center Plaza, Red Arrow Park, in front of City Hall, and recently outside Fiserv Forum.
The construction of the composite tree ended in 1981, when residents began donating trees from their yards.
Milwaukee school bands, choirs, and visiting professional singers and comedians have been part of the event since its beginning.
In 1925, the Christmas tree lighting was broadcast on radio for the first time and featured a trumpet fanfare performed by the Milwaukee Police Department Band, the sound of the chimes of St. James church, and a community singalong of favorite Christmas carols.
Today, the official tree lighting and singing of “O, Tannenbaum” takes place before Thanksgiving and sparks the start of the holiday shopping season, but not without stirring the evergreen memories of its luminous Christmas past.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee’s Christmas tree and lighting ceremony has been on the move over the years
Reporting by Elaine Rewolinski and Lou Saldivar, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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