Gates of Heaven Synagogue
They've been familiar sights on the Madison skyline for decades -- some for a century and a half. Yet most of us know little or nothing about them. They are the isthmus' historic places of worship.
Some have been adapted to other use. Eight of them are city of Madison historic landmarks.
Our oldest sacred spaces, the effigy mounds, were created by Native Americans in prehistory. Representative mounds are plentiful in and around Madison, at parks, on the UW campus, in the Arboretum and on the grounds of Mendota Mental Health Institute.
White settlers arrived on April 15, 1837. All were interested in attracting new citizenry, and many were land speculators. As much for themselves as for marketing purposes, they were anxious to create signs of Western civilization, such as mills, banks and especially churches. Demands of frontier life often intruded; an early observer noted that "Sabbath breaking and profanity impressed him strongly."
However, most settlers were sincerely pious -- to the point of fantasy. "Some imaginative people have often cherished the pleasing delusion that there existed a striking resemblance between Madison and Bethlehem of Judea," recalled one of the earliest settlers, Simeon Mills, in 1886.
The first sermon was Methodist, and was delivered on Nov. 28, 1837, in a boarding house on the corner of East Wilson and South Butler streets.
One of the first structures to regularly be used as a church was the territorial Capitol, completed in the spring of 1838. (Today's Capitol is Madison's third.) The building was so popular with congregations that services had to be scheduled in shifts. The city's first Sunday school was also hosted there, by Presbyterians. No one questioned mingling church and state, though Mills noted that the first territorial legislature never opened with prayer.
True churches were rapidly built. Early histories repeatedly observe that as many as 400 area Ho-Chunk regularly watched services from outside, fascinated but never entering.
They surely gathered around our first real church building, St. Paul's German Presbyterian, which stood at 15 S. Webster St., on the corner with East Washington Avenue. It was built in 1845. Still well preserved in 1922 because of its construction of oak cleared from the Capitol Square, it was threatened that year with demolition. An effort was made to move it to Tenney Park for use as a museum. John Olin, founder of the Park and Pleasure Drive Association, was already in a snit because the city had placed a pumping station in Brittingham Park. He put his foot down. Despite the pleas of Mayor Isaac Milo Kittleson, in 1923 the church was demolished, to make way for a garage.
Some sacred spaces have been adapted to other uses. For instance Bellini's Lounge, 401 E. Washington Ave, was built as Our Savior's Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1897. The congregation's roots go back to 1853. With its prominent location, long history, tall steeple and gothic windows, the restaurant's forerunner should be better known. The congregation broke ground for new quarters at 1201 Droster Rd. in 1974.
There are many such stories across Madison. But there are eight very special past and present places of worship that have been cited as official city historic landmarks.
