Madison is the capital and second-largest city in Wisconsin by population. Founded by a former federal judge and land speculator James Duane Doty in 1836, it is named after late president James Madison, who died that summer. After Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Leonard J. Farwell, a wealthy businessman from Milwaukee, was instrumental in getting industries located in Milwaukee about 1850. After Wisconsin became a state, Madison became a city with a population of 6,864. The first settlers were Yankees from the east. Germans, Irish, and Norwegians followed them. Around the turn of the 20th century, Italians, Greeks, Jews, and African Americans arrived. The railroad arrived in 1854, and the city developed steadily.
The city of Madison is the trade center of a large agricultural area (dairy products, corn, soybeans, tobacco, and livestock). Food processing is a significant industry in Madison, which is home to Oscar Mayer Foods Corp. This city is known for its lakeshores, bicycle paths, and large parks, including Henry Vilas Park with its city zoo.
Apart from the cars and outfits, it doesn’t look too different
I was going to mention the outfits and cars. 5-10 years after these photos, I started hanging out on state street.
Fascinating? Many of the photos look like current Madison photos with crappy 80s vehicles. A notable exception is Machinery Row before they sandblasted the facade to remove coal gunk. The difference was astounding while they cleaned the building: the Library Mall, minus the godawful new St Paul’s.
It would be nice to paint St Paul’s beige and cover it with ivy. It doesn’t look enjoyable.
The same thought crossed my mind. There were dozens of photos from the ’80s taken from places where Madison looks barely different today, except for Maxwell Street Days. It seems more like Maxwell Street Days of the 1990s than what it looks like today.
I remember those guys selling produce on the mall there
It must’ve been sooooo nice with 100k fewer people
In so many ways, it was. Less crowded, more fun, and less edgy and hostile. Things were different then, and they won’t be the same again.
Then again, weren’t some areas much edgier? I don’t know how far back you have to go, but I remember Schenk’s corner being dicey in the 1970s.
My family members lived in this area in the 1970s. People who lived in the area worked at Kipp, Ray-O-Vac, or whatever the Goodman Center used to be (two different businesses now known as Ironworks and Brassworks), and so on.
People Most houses were owner-occupied, though not luxurious, everyone knew their neighbors, and everybody’s kids went to East. There wasn’t any tension between ethnic groups because demographics were pretty uniform (not what you’d want today, but that was how Madison was in the 70s). Perhaps there were some bars where people drank too much and acted stupid, but where doesn’t that happen?
Why?
Possibly less crowded, less busy, less traffic, less development, less sprawl, fewer people at the parks, fewer at the markets, less noise, perhaps less litter. I can’t imagine anything that wouldn’t be improved.
I think the problem is more cars, not more people.
It would have been great if the Strand Theater had been preserved. The shopping on the Square is sorely missed.
Thanks for bringing back many happy memories from that era. There was a shot of Pic a Book, where I bought more than a few books and comics at that time.
Many places you would still recognize, many that have really changed.
Awesome stuff!