“Meet me at the Union.” It’s a message that has been sent from Badger to fellow Badger countless times over the years — as of 2019, 90 years, to be exact.
For those who have frequented Memorial Union, summer nights watching the sunset over Lake Mendota might be some of the most cherished moments in their time on campus. Many may even find it tough to envision a campus without a Union Terrace.
It’s difficult to envision a terrace without its iconic sunburst chairs, which have a long and local history. The chairs return to the terrace Thursday, April 18, after their winter-long hibernation.
When the Terrace opened to the public in 1928, the chairs and tables were made of hickory, a far cry from the metal chairs of today. The sunburst pattern was introduced in the 1930s, and, despite chair-making duties being handed off to several different manufacturers over the years, persists to this day.
Currently, the chairs are manufactured at Wisco Industries in Oregon, Wisconsin, a town of roughly 10,000 people just south of Madison. Wisco Industries, a family-owned business which has fabrication and food service equipment entities, has been responsible for manufacturing the Terrace chairs since 1980.
John Brayshaw, current operations manager and a 30-year employee of Wisco Industries, noted that their transition to primary manufacturers required some extra elbow grease, because the familiar sunburst chairs almost went extinct in the ‘60s.
“In 1966, the last manufacturer of the sunburst chairs went out of business and destroyed the tooling used to manufacture the chairs,” Brayshaw said. “In 1980, they brought in a chair for us to review, tooling was built and we started manufacturing them.”
From that point forward, they’ve worked closely with the university to fulfill numerous purchase orders for the chairs, both for use on the terrace and for sale in university-managed retail entities.
Brayshaw explained that the legs of the chairs are bent at the Oregon facility, and the rings which make up the frame of the back and the seat are manufactured at a separate facility.
Once all of these components are put together, they are sent to Wisco Industries’ welding shop. After the welding process is complete, each and every chair is carefully inspected for potential visual defects or safety hazards.
Finally, the chairs are sent across town to All-Color Powder Coating, also in Oregon, where they are painted. The chairs are coated in John Deere green and yellow and Allis-Chalmers orange, colors chosen to pay homage to Wisconsin’s rich agricultural background.
Once painted, they are either sent back to Wisco Industries for retail distribution or sent 20 minutes north to the campus prior to the chairs’ spring terrace debut.
Brayshaw recognizes and cherishes Wisco Industries’ role in the colorful chair spectacle.
“I’m fascinated by the fascination with the chairs,” he said. “I understand where it comes from. It’s a piece of people’s lives. You spend a lot of time in this place, and the chair ... helps people remember when they were in college.”
Brayshaw also believes that visitors’ sentiments towards the chairs blossom when they learn of the locality of the chairs’ manufacturing facilities.
“Being Wisconsinites, I think it’s important that these are locally made, versus having them manufactured [elsewhere]. I think that would take away from the allure of them,” he said. “They are literally made half an hour away from the university.”
This all feeds into sense of Wisconsin pride that Brayshaw personally feels.
“To me personally, the UW is iconic. There’s so much history there, and it makes everybody at Wisco Industries proud that we’re involved,” Brayshaw said. “Hopefully we’ll be doing this for years to come.”
Sai Chatyala, a current freshman at a UW-Madison freshman, echoed the sentiment.
"The Memorial Union is where everyone goes to hang out when they’re in town,” he said. “The chairs are Madison icons.”
