Teejop Before 1836
12,000+ years ago
The land of four lakes
People live along the lakeshores for at least 12,000 years. The Ho-Chunk name for the place is Teejop — “four lakes.”
1,000+ years ago
Mounds shaped like animals
Builders raise burial mounds — conical, linear and effigy. More than 1,200 sites are recorded around Teejop; 34 survive on the UW campus.
September 15, 1832
A treaty under duress
After the Black Hawk War, the Ho-Chunk cede Teejop to the United States. Many refuse to leave, or soon return.
A Paper City 1836–1847
1836
$1,500 for an isthmus
Speculator James Duane Doty and partners buy about 1,200 acres on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, then sell lots in a city that exists only on paper.
1836
A city of Founding Fathers
Doty names the town for James Madison, who died June 28, 1836, and names 30 streets for Madison’s fellow Constitution signers: Gorham, Hamilton, Pinckney and more.
November 28, 1836
Capital by buffalo robe
Meeting in cold Belmont, territorial legislators choose Madison. Doty hands out buffalo robes and cheap lots; about half the lawmakers own land there.
April 1837
The Pecks arrive
Eben and Roseline Peck open a log inn for the workmen building the capitol. In April 1838 it hosts Madison’s first wedding, with Roseline on fiddle.
July 4, 1837
The first capitol
The cornerstone is laid for a $60,000 statehouse; 36 workmen come from Milwaukee to build it.
Capital & Campus 1846–1899
1846 & 1856
Village, then city
Madison incorporates as a village of 626 people in 1846, and as a city of 6,863 in 1856. Jairus Fairchild is the first mayor.
1848–1849
A state and a university
Wisconsin becomes a state on May 29, 1848; the University of Wisconsin is chartered July 26. The first class meets Feb 5, 1849.
1852–53
Watching the ice
Records of Lake Mendota’s ice begin. Average ice cover falls from 114 days a winter in the 1800s to 82 since 2000.
1854
The railroad arrives
The Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad reaches Madison, tying the capital to Lake Michigan.
1861–1865
Camp Randall
About 70,000 of Wisconsin’s 91,000 Civil War soldiers muster on the old fairgrounds. In 1862 it holds 1,200 Confederate prisoners; about 140 die.
1863
Women on campus
To keep enrollment up during the Civil War, UW lets women into its Normal Department, a teacher-training college. In fall 1863, 119 of its 229 students are women.
1866
Open in all departments
The legislature specifies that the university is to be open to women in all of its departments.
April 17, 1897
A playwright’s birthplace
Thornton Wilder is born in Madison, where his father edits the Wisconsin State Journal. He becomes the only writer to win Pulitzers for both fiction and drama.
Dome & Prairie 1900–1945
1904
The Wisconsin Idea
UW president Charles Van Hise sets out the idea that the university’s work should reach every corner of the state — a creed it still cites.
February 26–27, 1904
The capitol burns
A gas jet ignites a freshly varnished ceiling, and fire destroys much of the second capitol.
1906–1917
A $7.2 million dome
George B. Post & Sons build today’s capitol of white Vermont granite, 284 feet to the top of Daniel Chester French’s gilded Wisconsin.
1919
Oscar Mayer comes to town
Oscar G. Mayer buys a small packing plant on Madison’s outskirts, cheap and close to farmers. The company builds 50 homes for workers and pays to extend the streetcar; by 1920 it is the country’s fifth-largest packing plant.
1925
Patents pay for science
Harry Steenbock, who paid $300 to patent a way to add vitamin D to food, assigns it to the new Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, WARF.
1937
Wright’s $5,500 house
Frank Lloyd Wright builds the Jacobs House, often called his first Usonian home. In 2019 it joins a UNESCO World Heritage listing.
1938
A dream by the lake
Wright first proposes Monona Terrace, a civic center on Lake Monona. A county board rejects it by one vote; it waits 59 years.
1940–1946
War empties, then floods, the campus
Enrollment falls from 11,376 in 1940 to 5,904 in 1943, then hits a record 18,598 in 1946 as GI Bill veterans arrive. Quonset huts rise on Library Mall.
1941
National champions
The Badgers win the NCAA basketball title after taking the East Regional in their own Field House. It is still UW’s only men’s basketball championship.
June 1942
Wartime airfield
The Army Air Forces open an airfield that trains radio operators and mechanics; it later becomes Truax Field.
Mad City 1946–1989
September 6, 1948
“The good life”
Life puts Madison on its cover with a photo essay, “Good life in Madison,” and claims few people who live there “ever move away of their own free will.”
1949
A land ethic
UW professor Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, published a year after his death, sets out a “land ethic” and becomes a founding text of American conservation.
1951
Wright’s Meeting House
Frank Lloyd Wright, a member, designs the First Unitarian Society’s Meeting House; members haul its limestone. A copper prow roof spans 64 feet without supports. It becomes a National Historic Landmark in 2004.
1954
From rat poison to medicine
Warfarin, found in Karl Paul Link’s UW biochemistry lab and named for WARF, is approved for human use. Sold to kill rats since 1948, it becomes a lifesaving blood thinner and in 1955 helps President Eisenhower recover from a heart attack.
1957
Hot dog headquarters
Madison becomes Oscar Mayer’s headquarters. At its 1970s peak, the east-side plant employs as many as 4,000 people.
1967
The World Dairy Expo
It debuts as the World Food Exposition and draws almost no one. Today it fills the Alliant Energy Center with about 60,000 visitors each fall.
October 18, 1967
Dow Day
Students block Dow Chemical recruiters over napalm; police clear the Commerce Building with clubs and tear gas.
December 10, 1967
Otis Redding’s last flight
The soul singer’s plane crashes into Lake Monona, killing seven. “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” becomes the first posthumous No. 1.
May 1969
Mifflin Street
Alder Paul Soglin is arrested at the Mifflin Street Block Party as police and students clash. Four years later he is mayor.
August 24, 1970
Sterling Hall
A van bomb aimed at the Army Mathematics Research Center kills physicist Robert Fassnacht and injures three.
1972
Five farmers on the Square
Mayor Bill Dyke starts a market with five farmers. Today it calls itself the nation’s largest producers-only farmers’ market.
1973–2019
Soglin, three times
1973–79: elected at 27, he builds the State Street Mall and hands Fidel Castro a key to the city. 1989–97: he leads the push for Monona Terrace, then leaves for a losing run for Congress. 2011–19: back at 65 by under a point, he loses a fourth term. 22 years in all.
1978
“77 square miles surrounded by reality”
Republican Lee Dreyfus coins the jab while running for governor. Madison keeps it as a nickname.
1979
Epic begins
Judy Faulkner starts a medical-software company in Madison with $70,000. It becomes Epic Systems, the largest U.S. electronic health records vendor.
1979
Liberty and flamingos
UW’s Pail & Shovel Party builds a Statue of Liberty replica on Lake Mendota’s ice in February, then plants 1,008 pink flamingos on Bascom Hill on Sept 4.
February 1980
Five golds
Madison-born speed skater Eric Heiden, Madison West class of 1976, wins all five men’s speed-skating golds at Lake Placid — a record of individual golds still unmatched.
1982
The city’s biography
David Mollenhoff’s Madison: A History of the Formative Years becomes the standard history. Stuart Levitan’s illustrated volumes follow: 1856–1931 in 2006, 1932–1979 in 2026.
1983
Smart Studios
Butch Vig and Steve Marker open a recording studio on East Washington Avenue. Nirvana records there in 1990, and the Smashing Pumpkins make Gish. It closes in 2010.
1985
The boom crests
Baby-boom growth lifts UW–Madison to 45,050 students — more than double 1960’s 18,811 — and pushes the campus southwest.
1987
Stegner’s Madison
Wallace Stegner’s semi-autobiographical novel Crossing to Safety opens in 1937 as two young instructors and their wives begin a lifelong friendship at the university in Madison.
Isthmus Capital 1990–2008
April 1990
Nothing above the dome
State law caps buildings within a mile of the capitol at 1,032.8 feet above sea level — the base of the dome’s columns.
1992 & 2003
The ’60s, on the page
Tom Bates’s Rads reconstructs the 1970 Army Math Research Center bombing. David Maraniss’s They Marched into Sunlight sets Dow Day beside a Vietnam battle the day before; it is a 2004 Pulitzer finalist.
August 15, 1995
Garbage
Vig and Marker’s own band, Garbage, fronted by Shirley Manson, releases its debut, recorded at Smart. It sells more than 4 million copies and earns three Grammy nominations.
1996
No. 1 of 300
Money names the Madison area the best place to live among the 300 largest U.S. metro areas, citing 1.5% unemployment. Its chief complaint: winter highs averaging about 20°F.
July 18, 1997
Wright’s terrace, at last
After voters approve it in 1992, Monona Terrace opens at a cost of $67.1 million.
1998
Stem cells
James Thomson’s UW lab becomes the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells; WARF holds the patents.
October 10, 1998
Jump Around
Fans first bounce to House of Pain at Camp Randall’s homecoming game. Paused in 2003 during stadium renovations, it returns after an engineer signs off.
1999 & 2000
Back-to-back roses
The Badgers beat UCLA, then Stanford, becoming the first Big Ten team to win consecutive Rose Bowls. Ron Dayne is the game’s MVP both times.
2002
Ironman Wisconsin
The first race sends triathletes on a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Monona, a 112-mile ride and a marathon around the capitol.
September 19, 2004
Overture Center
César Pelli’s arts center opens on State Street. Jerry Frautschi and his wife, American Girl founder Pleasant Rowland, pay for it with gifts totaling $205 million.
2005
Epic moves out
Epic relocates to a sprawling campus in suburban Verona. By 2008 it has about 3,000 employees; 2007 revenue was about $500 million.
April 25, 2006
A state records credit, take one
The Assembly passes a 50% income-tax credit for health providers’ electronic-records hardware and software, capped at $10 million a year. The state Senate lets it die on May 11. A 2007 rerun (AB 111/SB 45) dies in March 2008 without a floor vote.
July 27, 2006
Washington’s first try
The House votes 270–148 for a health-IT bill (H.R. 4157’s text in S. 1418) that would write the federal health-IT coordinator’s office into law; Rep. Paul Ryan of Janesville is a co-sponsor. The Senate passed its version by unanimous consent in 2005. The two never merge.
August 4, 2006
Taylor Swift, free
At 16, a little-known Taylor Swift plays a free 4:45 p.m. set at a radio station’s birthday show on Willow Island, Brat Fest’s home. About 60 people watch.
2007
The credit returns via the budget
Gov. Jim Doyle puts the same credit into the 2007–09 state budget (2007 Act 20). Before it starts, the 2009 budget pushes it to 2012, citing federal stimulus money. It is one of 15 credits that sunset after tax year 2013.
A City of 300,000 2009–2026
2009 & 2014
Exact Sciences
The cancer-test maker moves its headquarters to Madison from Massachusetts. In August 2014 the FDA approves its at-home test, Cologuard.
2009 & 2020
Madison in fiction
Lorrie Moore, long a UW writing teacher, sets A Gate at the Stairs in an unnamed town much like it. Brandon Taylor’s Real Life, drawn from his UW biochemistry years, makes the 2020 Booker shortlist. Ann Packer’s The Dive from Clausen’s Pier is set squarely in Madison.
February 17, 2009
A taxpayer-funded tailwind
The stimulus’s HITECH Act pays hospitals and doctors to adopt certified electronic records — $34.7 billion by May 2016 — and penalizes holdouts from 2015. Epic’s share of U.S. acute-care beds jumps from 20.6% in 2012 to 46.5% in 2018. Founder Judy Faulkner sits on the federal panel advising on the money; critics call it a conflict of interest.
February 13, 2009
How Wisconsin voted
On the stimulus carrying HITECH, the House votes 246–183. Wisconsin Democrats Tammy Baldwin (Madison), Steve Kagen, Ron Kind, Gwen Moore and Appropriations chair David Obey vote yes. Republicans Tom Petri, Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner vote no. In the Senate (60–38), Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold vote yes.
September 1, 2009
An official plastic bird
The council votes 15–4 to make the plastic pink flamingo Madison’s official bird.
February – March 2011
Act 10
Gov. Scott Walker’s bill limits most public workers — not police or firefighters — to bargaining over base wages and makes them pay more for pensions and health care. Up to 100,000 protesters fill the Square; Senate Democrats flee to Illinois. Walker signs it March 11.
2012–2026
Act 10’s long tail
Walker survives a 2012 recall; in 2014 the state Supreme Court rejects Madison Teachers Inc.’s challenge, 5–2. Public-sector union membership falls from 46.6% (2010) to 18.5% (2025). A Dane County judge strikes most of the law in 2024; an appeals court restores it July 29, 2026.
October 2013
The other Madison
The Race to Equity report finds 25% of Black Dane County residents unemployed, against 4.8% of white residents. A 2023 follow-up finds deep gaps persist.
April 4 & 6, 2015
Ending a perfect season
The Badgers beat undefeated Kentucky 71–64 in the Final Four, then lose the national final to Duke, 68–63.
2016
Ho-Chunk Day
The city sets the fourth Friday of November as Ho-Chunk Day, in perpetuity.
2017–2023
The CrossFit Games
The Games come to the Alliant Energy Center six times (not 2020), drawing about 50,000 people a year before moving to Fort Worth.
June 2017
Oscar Mayer leaves
Production ends after nearly a century. Kraft Heinz’s 2015 decision cost about 1,000 jobs and moved the headquarters to Chicago.
December 18, 2021
Volleyball’s first title
Wisconsin beats Nebraska in five sets for its first NCAA volleyball championship.
September 12, 2023
“A brick wall”
Investor Bill Gurley makes Epic his case study of regulatory capture. Faulkner, he says, was “the only corporate representative” on Obama’s health-IT council, and the rules “put a brick wall there, so you couldn’t come up.” Her role in shaping the rules he offers as his assumption.
Fall 2023
50,000 students
UW–Madison enrollment tops 50,000 for the first time. In fall 2025 it counts 51,822 students and 28,017 faculty and staff.
Fiscal 2024
Top five in research
UW–Madison spends a record $1.93 billion on research, fifth among U.S. universities.
September 22, 2024
Rapid transit
Metro’s first bus rapid transit line, Route A, starts running east–west across the city.
November 5, 2024
Voters close a gap
In the city’s first property-tax referendum, about 57% approve $22 million to avoid cuts to police, buses and libraries.
2025
Epic at 14,000–17,000
Forbes puts Epic at about 14,000 employees and $5.7 billion in revenue; LinkedIn-style counts show about 17,000. Either way, up from about 3,000 in 2008. It runs records for 54.9% of U.S. acute-care hospital beds (2024).
2026
300,000 strong
A state estimate puts Madison at 300,153 people, up 9.3% since 2020. The city’s adopted 2026 operating budget is $452.7 million.
March 23, 2026
Exact is sold
Abbott completes its $23 billion purchase of Exact Sciences, which employs about 7,200 people worldwide.
March 22, 2026
Nine for hockey
UW women’s hockey beats Ohio State 3–2 for a second straight NCAA title, its ninth in all.
October 6, 2026
A Nobel from the ice
UW physicist Francis Halzen wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for IceCube, the South Pole neutrino observatory UW leads, and its discovery of high-energy neutrinos from deep space. UW counts 22 laureates.