When City Hall was finished in 1896 only the Washington Monument was a taller structure in the United States. Its 353-foot bell tower lorded over a town of mostly two-and three and four-story structures. Milwaukee architect Henry C. Koch designed the civic centerpiece in a Flemish Renaissance Revival style and sunk 2,584 pine pilings into the marshy ground along the Milwaukee River to support the building. On top of the pilings were placed two floors of black granite and six floors comprised of eight million pressed bricks, about half of which were used for the bell tower. Inside the Common Council Chamber is the largest in the country - quite an upgrade for a government body that had started in the 1840s in a small church and then moved to the second floor of a livery stable.
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