Pat's Local Madison History Page: Hi everyone,It's been a VERY long while-a LOT o...

Pat's Local Madison History Page:  Hi everyone,

It's been a VERY long while-a LOT o...:   Hi everyone, It's been a VERY long while-a LOT of water's gone over the dam since I last posted. Am living in Jefferson now w...

 Hi everyone,

It's been a VERY long while-a LOT of water's gone over the dam since I last posted. Am living in Jefferson now with an apartment and a job, but my heart is still and I think always will be back over there in the Mad City that I came to know and love in my 2 1/2 years of residency there. I keep thinking that eventually I will be over to move back over there and this time hopefully maintain a permanent residency in that beautiful gem of a city that we Wisconsinites claim as our state capitol.

So anyhow, over the course of two days last week, I've found myself back over there to have a stress test done at St. Mary's. This gave me an excellent opportunity to re-visit some of my old haunts in the city and with the hospital being right over on that end, I found myself in the neighborhood of Monroe St.

During my residency in Madison, I spent much time over in this part of town, bicycling through this area regularly, whether visiting the shops or grabbing some coffee at Collectivo or just hanging out down in Wingra Park.

Wingra Park. The site of the Knickerbocker Ice Company warehouse, where freshly cut ice from the lake bearing the same name as the aforementioned park was stored before being shipped out. Shipped out by rail on a long-defunct spur that connected with the Illinois Central main line, itself now defunct, although it's right of way lives on in the form of the Southwest Commuter Path, a mainstay of this neighborhood a few blocks to the north.

Looking around at the site now, one would never guess that once upon a time, a huge storage facility once occupied the site of this lovely little gem of a greenspace along the lake. During the winter, this facility would have hummed with activity with blocks of ice right off the lake being brought in for storage, packed in between thick layers of sawdust until such time as it was loaded onto the outgoing rail cars, bound for locations all over the United States.

A study of old plat maps of the city compared with the modern day Google maps tells the story of where this spur line was located in the neighborhood. 

Leaving Wingra Park, a paved walking/bicycle trail within the park follows the original alignment of the abandoned spur's right of way or so I would assume. My hypothesis concerning this is strongly supported by the fact that the driveway of the old firehouse which is now the home of the Madison Theatre Guild is in direct line across Monroe Street with this path, it would seem to me to be more than coincidence that these two alignments match perfectly and the old maps of the spur appear to agree with and to bear out the truth of this matter. Once again, using the two maps for comparison, the right of way would have continued on north past the point where the current driveway ends on the back side of the Theatre Guild, directly beneath the line of trees that now marks the back property lines of the homes along Commonwealth avenue to the west and W. Lawn Ave. to the east.

Following this line north and once again drawing from the old map, one can see that this spur would have headed straight north through this line of trees before passing directly through portions of both neighboring lots at 2431 and 2435 Commonwealth Avenue. This would put our spur directly onto the route of Commonwealth straight north from this point to what is now the junction of Commonwealth and the Southwest Commuter Path, which as I said in railroad days was the IC's mainline connecting Madison to the rest of it's system at Freeport, Illinois.

So there you have it. A ghost resurrected from the city's and the Wingra Neighborhood's past. A former vital artery connection over which ice from Lake Wingra was shipped to all parts of the country. Looking at where the crossing would have been at Monroe Street between the park and the Theatre Guild, one can almost imagine the whistling of the steam locomotives as they crossed this busy West Side thoroughfare as well as the rumbling of the wooden cars either full or soon to be full of ice passing back and forth through this crossing.

Map from 1911 showing the exact location of spur running from it's connection with the IC main line (now Southwest Commuter Path) to the Knickerbocker Ice Co. storage facility located on the site of present day Wingra Park. The  spur runs through the SE corner of Section 21 on the map and down through the NE corner of Section 28. Zoom in for a closer look and compare it with modern day Google Maps like I did.

Came back into the city for a visit yesterday morning-I've been living in Lake Mills since November but I still like to come back and do my history reporting in the capitol city that I've come to know and love and that I hope to be able to move back to in the not so distant future.

Anyhow, I decided to start my day with breakfast at Willaby's Cafe but when I entered the establishment I found it full to maximum capacity and was told that it would be about a 20 minute wait which is about average for Willaby's on a Sunday morning.

So I decided to go over across the street to Lazy Jane's and see how it looked over there only to find the same situation as at Willaby's. So I decided to just grab a copy of the Isthmus as well as of the Capitol Times and sit on the bench directly across from Willaby's in front of the Willy Street Ace hardware store. During my residency in Madison, this was always one of my favorite spots to just sit and watch the world go by. It was a beautiful morning out and the birds were singing. A female Madison police officer came by walking her beat and we had a nice conversation before she continued on. Life felt great, like it couldn't get any better than this.

That hardware store is certainly a legend of it's own, being built in 1923 and having been in continuous operation as a hardware store from then to now. I did almost all my hardware business as it was part of my Willy St. beat which I would cover by throwing my laundry in at the laundromat further up the street, browsing St. Vinnie's, hitting the Willy St. Co-op, maybe grabbing something at Willaby's and grabbing any hardware-related items that I needed at Ace. I have always enjoyed coming in this work of art of a building with it's wooden floors and pressed tin ceiling and being waited on by the friendly courteous staff with a real knowledge of what they're talking about. I have read all the historical information on display behind the counter there and am always proud to shop at this living monument to Madison's past. Does anyone else out there have any memories of this store that they'd like to share?

Went out for coffee this morning at Willaby's Cafe on Williamson ("Willy") Street, sitting at the counter as per my usual custom. Got talking with a nice young couple who lived just up the street from the restaurant and pretty soon the talk turned to the history of the local neighborhood around there-the Marquette.

I explained to them how this was one of the oldest parts of the city, being not far removed from downtown, home to several prominent business people, of which the name BB Clarke immediately came to mind, with his home being locate d at the corner of Spaight and S. Few Streets, an imposing residence built in the Gothic style of architecture.

I then related to them the history of Orton Park, the city's oldest, with it's beginnings being that of the village cemetery in 1848, the same year that Wisconsin attained statehood and the bodies eventually being disinterred and removed to the Forest Hill site when that opened in 1857, with the final ones (that could be found) being removed in 1877 and being designated as Madison's first official city park, with it being named after Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and former Madison Mayor, who cast the deciding vote in favor of it being a park.

And finally, I ended the conversation in explaining to them the story of the Corry Carriage House on Lakeland Avenue, which was built in 1911 for James Corry and his wife Minnie, before he died with the main house never having been completed. I explained a bit about the Fair Oaks Plat on what was the the city's Far East Side and how Mr. Corry was a major player in the development of this as well as a promoter of the East Side in general.

So all in all, it turned out to be a nice morning, making some new friends and being able to share with them some of the history of their neighborhood.