History

130 years of Madison's Parks

Roughly 13,000 years ago, the Dejope region was formed by the retreat of glaciers. Evidence suggests humans occupied this area starting as early as 300 AD (Historic Madison, Inc. n.d.). The Ho-Chunk Nation called this area Taychopera (land of four lakes) and considered it their home.

Fast forward more than a thousand years to 1829, when James Doty visited the Madison area. Doty drew plats for the Four Lakes area and persuaded the territorial legislature to designate Madison as the new capital and name him as its building commissioner (Wisconsin Historical Society). Doty’s original plat of Madison included only one public space, a park around the Capitol Building, but otherwise had ignored opportunities for parks around the lakes (Madison History of a Model City, E Janik).

In 1893, the Madison Improvement Association organized with pledge support from the public to pursue tree planting, park development and street and lakeshore beautification. They hired landscape architect Olaf Benson to design parks, boulevards, and walkways for the city, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright to design two public boathouses. Community opposition coupled with the severe economic depression of that era kept many of these projects from ever being realized. Around the same time, another group of men were collaborating to create Madison’s first pleasure drive expanding upon a network of farm roads at the University of Wisconsin which opened to the public in the 1860s.

For families and individuals with the means to do so, horse-drawn carriage rides were a popular leisure activity in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the success of the new network led to the formation of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association (MPPDA), in 1894. Shortly thereafter, the MPPDA expanded its reach to meet the interest and need to develop parks and open space within the city. Daniel Tenney led the expansion with his donation of a fourteen-acre parcel near Lake Mendota for a park, and an additional $2,500 donation to the MPPDA.

During the next five years, the acres of parkland within the city expanded from just 3 in 1900 to 154 in 1905. Although the MPPDA effectively served as the city’s unofficial parks department, raising private donations to acquire and improve park land, construct additional pleasure drives, and plant trees and shrubs throughout the city, its founders and particularly its president John Olin recognized that long-term sustainability for a park system would require city involvement. To that end, the common council hired Emil Mische as its first park superintendent to oversee park operations in 1905. In 1909, the common council passed a tax of one-half mill (1/20th of a cent) for park purposes, which brought in nearly $50,000 per year over the next ten years.

Just before John Olin’s resignation as president of the MPPDA in 1909, the MPPDA engaged the services of the landscape architect John Nolen to prepare a comprehensive plan for the improvement and future growth of the city. Nolen published Madison: A Model City in 1911, in which he recommended that the existing 150 acres of parkland and many miles of pleasure drives be expanded into a coordinated system of parks under the responsibility of an official Park Commission. In 1931, the Madison Park Commission (now the Board of Park Commissioners) was created, and the MPPDA transferred full responsibility for the operation, maintenance, and acquisition of all parks and pleasure drives to the City, forming the basis of the parks system we have today.

In 1938, another civic organization, the Trustees of Madison Planning Trust, privately engaged the services of City planner Ladislas Segoe to prepare a comprehensive plan for the city in cooperation with the Madison Park Commission and Plan Commission. This comprehensive plan included a park, playground, and open space system plan. It recommended that the existing 441 acres within 29 parks and two 9-hole municipal golf courses be expanded dramatically to over 1,520 acres in recognition of forecasted urban growth.

The 1950s and 60s served as a period of tremendous growth for the park system, with the creation of several other large community-level parks including Reindahl Park (1956), Rennebohm Park (1958), and Garner Park (1965). In 1961, a Park and Open Space Plan was adopted that recommended preservation of natural drainageways and significant natural areas such as Cherokee Marsh and the Nine Springs wetlands. An emphasis of this plan and subsequent updates was to identify and find ways to minimize deficiencies of parkland in the expanding city. Garner Park was created in 1965, and shortly thereafter, in 1968, a deed from Charles Elver to the City created and named Charles Elver Park, later shortened to Elver Park, which (at nearly 251 acres) is the largest community level park in the system. The municipal golf program also continued to expand during this time, with the addition of the Odana Hills (1957) and Yahara Hills (1968) courses.

The 1970s and 1980s were each significant decades in parkland acquisition for very different reasons. While the 1970s saw nearly 550 acres of parkland added to the system, which was one of the largest decades for acreage of land added, the 1980s saw fewer than 150 acres added. Nonetheless, the land added in the 1980s created 14 neighborhood and mini parks along with a new conservation park (Stricker’s Pond) and a new community park (Wexford Ridge).

Several large-scale park amenities opened in the 1990s and 2000s, to meet the needs of Madison’s growing population. The first disc golf courses were added at Elver Park (1992) and Hiestand Park (1997), Warner Park Community Recreation Center (1999) and the Irwin A. & Robert D. Goodman Pool (2006). The Madison Parks Foundation, formed in 2002, serves as the Division’s primary non-profit fundraising collaborator and supports initiatives to improve and expand the park lands, facilities, programs and services offered by Madison Parks. Since 2013, the Parks Foundation has been an integral partner in several of major projects and programs, including the KNOW Program, The Glen Golf Park and clubhouse redesign, inclusive playgrounds and the Learning Series.

In recent years, the role of parks became far more prevalent in natural disaster and public health emergency response efforts. Climate change events, such as historic flooding (2018) and air quality concerns due to wildfires (2023), brought the role of parks and greenspaces to the forefront of the public conversation on climate resiliency. In 2020 and throughout the pandemic, parks provided safe spaces where residents could safely be with others to find respite and address their physical, mental, social and overall well-being, as evidenced by record numbers of park visitors and golf rounds played.

Today, the City of Madison Parks Division manages 280+ parks totaling nearly 6,000 acres. The Parks Division is also responsible for the operation and maintenance of special facilities such as Olbrich Botanical Gardens, the Warner Park Community and Recreation Center, the Goodman Pool, four public golf courses, the Forest Hill public cemetery, and the State Street and the Capitol Mall Concourse.