Two stories published in the 1892 Milwaukee Journal reference the installation of the John Plankinton Statue in the Plankinton Hotel lobby rotunda. The statue was placed on a pedestal, nine feet high, (correction: statue and pedestal together are nine feet high) in the hotel on June 29. It was viewed by “hundreds of people” on June 30. According to the June 30 news articles, it took the sculptor six months to create the statue in Chicago. John Plankinton’s son, William Plankinton, ordered the statue. John Plankinton died the year before, in 1891.

The Plankinton hotel was razed in 1915 and in its place was built the Plankinton Arcade.