Fiscal Note
No appropriation required.
Title
Celebrating Nakoma on its centennial and saluting all who created, nurtured and maintained it through these past hundred years and beyond.
Body
WHEREAS, Native Americans had long enjoyed the western banks of Lake Wingra for a summer encampment; and,
WHEREAS, European settlement after 1836 developed the rolling landscape into private farmlands in the new Town of Madison; and,
WHEREAS, the University Land Co. opened its Gorham Heights plat on farmland overlooking the historic Spring Tavern in 1911, with little success; and,
WHEREAS, the Madison Realty Co. bought the failed plat and several adjoining farms and in July 1915 offered the first 290 lots for sale in its new 89-acre development; and,
WHEREAS, the MRC called the plat “Nakoma,” a Chippewa word said to mean, “I do as I promise;” and,
WHEREAS, the MRC honored the land’s legacy by naming the Nakoma’s streets after Native American tribes and nations; and,
WHEREAS, the heart of the Nakoma neighborhood is the Nakoma Historic District, entered in the National register of Historic Places in February, 1998 in recognition of its architectural integrity and social significance; and,
WHEREAS, the Nakoma Historic District contains the finest collection of Period Revival residential architecture found in Madison, including Colonial, Dutch Colonial, Tudor, French Provincial and Norman Revival, along with a sampling of Prairie, Bungalow and Craftsman style residences; and,
WHEREAS, the board of the Madison Realty Co. embodied the classic Madison business combination of public service, university, law and finance by including such leaders as Circuit Court Judge and future Supreme Court Justice E. Ray Stevens, Savings Loan and Trust Co. secretary Edward F. Riley, UW Dean of Agriculture Henry L. Russell, Bank of Wisconsin president Joseph M. Boyd, and Alfred E. Rogers, law partner of Sen. Robert M. Follette, and others; and,
WHEREAS, Nakoma’s general concept plan w...
Click here for full text