There's a proliferation of Madison history walking tours

History is literally under foot

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Arts

It’s a beautiful evening in late June and the setting sun casts the Brittingham Boathouse in that idealizing light that gives the golden hour its name.

Two groups of about 18 people each have gathered in front of the boathouse to take the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation’s new West Railroad Corridor tour that will wend its way from Monona Bay to the depot on West Washington Avenue. It’s one of eight different tours the trust offers, in repertory, this summer through Sept. 28.

The tours are a reminder that a city is not just its present but its past, and that encompasses many pasts, from the Ho-Chunk to the European settlers of the 19th century to African Americans who came to the Greenbush and rail areas from the south during the “Great Migration” of the early 20th century. Current interest in placemaking, acknowledging these varied interests, may explain the proliferation of history tours recently. The Wisconsin Historical Society also offers walking tours. And this summer Madison Boats has launched a Lake Mendota Heritage Tour by boat, Tuesday and Thursday nights.

When you say “historic architecture tour,” people usually think of ornate homes — and the trust does have two Mansion Hill tours; this year, Mansion Hill east is on the schedule. But the rail corridor tour is more focused on what the arrival of the railroad in 1854 meant for the area, which then had a population of about 7,000 and would not be incorporated as a city until 1856.

Participants don wireless headsets so everyone can hear the volunteer tour guide, which in this case happens to be Madison Trust board president Rick Chandler. The tour route, which has a little less traffic now due to the closure of North Shore Drive at John Nolen, is still busy with bicyclists, rollerbladers and dog walkers, and the headsets keep the narration audible even for those who lag behind. Most of the participants introduce themselves as lifelong Madisonians, or people who came here to attend the UW and have lived here for 30 to 40 years.

Madison Trust for Historic Preservation is constantly researching the city’s past and creating new tours; they have 22 altogether, says Steve Sparks, a volunteer docent and chair of the trust’s community engagement committee. Each year a specialty tour gets a trial run at the end of the season. “This year it will be the Frost Woods neighborhood in Monona,” Sparks says; last year, it was the innovative cooperatively owned Crestwood community. After revisions, these specialty tours are added to the rotation.

This year the State Street tour is also being called new, although “technically it’s just been dramatically revised,” says Sparks, due to the intense changes taking place there. Other tours for 2026 are Machinery Row, Nakoma, Old Market Place, Orton Park and UW Ag Campus.

Sparks says that while certain tours are more popular than others (several of the State Street tours are already sold out), they all fill up over time and by the end of the season about 95% of their tickets are sold.

“Every one of these tours introduces people to the history of places that they’ve walked by or driven by and had no idea what they were,” says Sparks. “People are always shocked and excited about that.”

That’s true of the West Rail Corridor tour. The concentration of rehabbed warehouse-style apartments in the area is due to their proximity to the 12 rail lines that used to come into the depot on West Washington Avenue. What is today the Frank Beverage Group got its start on Bedford Street as a fruit wholesaler. The building that houses WORT-FM started as a company that provided candy and cigarettes for vending machines.

A surprising number of commercial buildings on the tour were designed by the storied Madison architectural firm Claude and Starck, perhaps better known for its graceful Craftsman style homes. Even the humble Main Depot Tavern was designed by Claude and Starck in a style tour guide Chandler calls “commercial utilitarian with a few Queen Anne touches.” It’s a reminder, he says, that even well regarded architects took on “less prominent” jobs. The tavern was a “saloon” for most of its life, says Chandler, with the exception of the Prohibition years, when it housed the Commonwealth Telephone Company.

Tours are not all the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation does; it supports preservation of Madison history in many ways. Chandler notes the good work done in the rail area by Urban Land Interests, Roger Charly, and Delta Properties: “From the point of view of the trust, we love to see old buildings put through the adaptive reuse process. The greenest building is the one that’s already there.” 

Five tours are offered in succession throughout summer by the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison Black History Walking Tour ended in June; LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour continues through July along with Democracy in Action. Hidden History of the Capitol Square takes place in August and September, and Hidden History: From Myth to Mystery in August and October. More info at historicalmuseum.wisconsinhistory.org/plan/upcoming-events.

Madison Boats Lake Mendota Heritage Tours take place Tuesdays and Thursdays leaving from Marshall Park for a two-hour pontoon boat tour narrated by local experts including Don Sanford, who literally wrote the book about Lake Mendota, On Fourth Lake: A Social History of Lake Mendota. More info at madisonboats.com/events.