Milwaukee, WI. - The Wisconsin Historical Society placed the Marshall and Ilsley Bank (Milwaukee, Milwaukee County) on the State Register of Historic Places on August 20, 2021.

The Marshall & Ilsley Bank is significant in Milwaukee as a fine example of the Post-War Modern Bank property type, a building type that projected the dramatic shifts in the banking industry in the years following World War II through a combination of Modernist design, new technologies that offered convenience to customers, and a reorganization of public banking spaces for greater efficiency and improved service. The building’s Miesian style design, with its exterior skeletal steel and curtain wall construction, vertical concrete mullions, and sleek, open bank lobby, clearly represents the progressive, transparent, and customer-oriented image that bankers in the post-war period strove to project. The building also expanded on and advertised the bank’s use of new technology to its customers and the city, including drive-in and walk-up banking facilities serviced by pneumatic tube and closed-circuit TV systems, and an electronically controlled vault. The bank also featured modern building systems, including central air conditioning, a computer-operated elevator system, and double-glazed windows.

The Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building served as the corporate headquarters and main branch for the Marshall & Ilsley Corporation from 1968 to 2011. At the time of the building’s completion in 1968, Marshall & Ilsley had entered an era of tremendous expansion through a series of acquisitions of banks that stretched from the 1960s through the 1990s. The corporation pioneered the use of computers for data processing through the 1960s and early 1970s, and Marshall & Ilsley partnered with three Milwaukee banks in the mid-1970s to develop the “Take Your Money Everywhere” (TYME) cash terminal system, which was the first shared ATM system of its kind in the country.

In an era during which Marshall & Ilsley evolved from a local bank to a diversified financial institution with branches throughout Wisconsin and several other states, the Marshall & Ilsley Bank building served as the corporate anchor for the company, providing a continued connection to the firm’s history within the city of Milwaukee, and today remains an excellent example of this distinct Post-War Modern Bank property type. 

The State Register is Wisconsin's official list of state properties determined to be significant to Wisconsin's heritage. The State Historic Preservation Office at the Wisconsin Historical Society administers both the State Register and National Register in Wisconsin.

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit www.wisconsinhistory.org.