A battleship bell has been on display, if you can call it that, for the whole quarter-century that I've lived in Wauwatosa. And until last week, I'd never seen it.
Not just any battleship. It's from the USS Wisconsin, the first one.
"I would say that 99% of the people from the city of Wauwatosa do not realize that bell is sitting there in a hidden alcove at City Hall," said Tosa's Deputy Fire Chief Bill Rice.
It was his idea to move the bell to a more visible home outside the front door of the city's new fire station, which will be opened with a ribbon-cutting on June 5.
But wait. Should a bell from Wisconsin's namesake ship be in the hands of one community? Navy veteran and historian Greg Stamatelakys has raised that question. He happens to be a Wauwatosa resident, but he thinks the bell belongs to the people of Wisconsin.
"Its condition and placement is disrespectful to the bell and the memory of those people and events from so long ago," he wrote to Wauwatosa Mayor Jill Didier last week.
We interrupt this skirmish for some Navy history. The USS Wisconsin was launched in 1898 and commissioned in 1901. (This ship is not to be confused with the second and better-known USS Wisconsin, which battled in World War II and was reactivated during Operation Desert Storm; it's now a museum in Norfolk, Va.)
The first USS Wisconsin is known for circling the globe with the Great White Fleet of 16 battleships to prove America's naval power during the first decade of the 20th century. After seeing only limited action in World War I, the 373-foot ship was sold for scrap in 1922.
Here's where Tosa comes into the picture. Native son Frederick Underwood, a railroad tycoon out east, acquired the bell and gave it as a gift to the Wauwatosa Fire Department in 1924.
For years, the bell served a practical use in Wauwatosa. It was mounted atop the original fire station and rung to alert firefighters of emergencies, according to research by the Wauwatosa Historical Society. The fire station relocated in 1942, and the bell was put in storage.
I found a Milwaukee Sentinel article from May 1960 when the bell was brought back out and dedicated at the Wauwatosa civic center. For decades, it's been hidden along the north side of the city hall and library complex. The problem is that everyone enters those buildings from the south side, and the bell gets no attention.
Greg Stamatelakys and I met at the bell last week. It's weathered to a pale green. The clapper has been welded into position, so Greg tapped the large bell with a pocketknife to hear its sweet sound. The bell reads: "Wisconsin 1899."
"It's really something," said the former boatswain mate who served in the Navy from 1977 to '81 on a refueling ship. These days he's captain of the research vessel Neeskay for UWM's Great Lakes WATER Institute.
"It should be in the rotunda in Madison or at the War Memorial at the lakefront," Greg said.
He found agreement on that point from Ted Hutton, a Brookfield retiree who was on the War Memorial Center board and volunteers on veterans projects. Ted also contacted Mayor Didier and talked County Executive Scott Walker into calling her, too, to inquire about the bell.
"It's the USS Wisconsin, not the USS Wauwatosa. So it's state," Ted said, who added that Wauwatosa could be provided with a replica.
The answer he got was "it just ain't gonna happen," Ted said. The bell is staying in Tosa.
The mayor said she didn't find any support in Wauwatosa for giving up the bell. But she's excited that it's going to get more notice in the busy village area. The War Memorial has a bell from the USS Milwaukee, and she suggested a sign could be placed next to that bell telling people to visit Wauwatosa to see the Wisconsin bell.
Greg tried to get other allies at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison and also the U.S. Navy League local chapters. Those organizations told me that it's a battle they don't want to fight.
Bill Brewster, curator at the veterans museum, said the bell is a unique piece and he wonders how many from the Great White Fleet survive. This situation reminded him of all the cannons and tanks in city parks and outside courthouses.
"If it was offered to us as an institute, we'd take it," he said. "But it's been in the possession of the city a long time. Being able to view it is the most important thing."
The museum has the bell from the second USS Wisconsin on permanent loan from the Navy.
I admire Greg's passion, but his objection was based partly on an incorrect assumption that the bell would be placed high in a tower at the firehouse and hard to see. Bill's view sounds reasonable to me. The bell has lived in Wauwatosa for 86 years, and somehow life has gone on.
Deputy Fire Chief Rice said he pictures people stopping to see the bell and reading the plaque at the new fire station on Underwood Ave., named, by the way, for the family of the man who gave the bell. Children could run their hands over a piece of history here, but it will remain non-ringable.
He told me that he respectfully disagrees with those who want it elsewhere.
"They'd have to pry the bell from our hands," he said.
Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or e-mail at jstingl@journalsentinel.com