When Madison, Wisconsin, was selected as the territorial capital in 1836, the community existed only as a plan and there was just one inn and a general store, and construction on the statehouse had just begun. The state capitol lay on an isthmus bordered by two lakes.
The current statehouse replaced two others and was built between 1906 and 1917 at a cost of more than seven million dollars. It wasn't surprising that the statehouse looked so enormous once we read the height of the Capitol from the ground floor to the top of the statue on the dome was more than 16 feet taller than the US Capitol in Washington!
I didn't know whether to be alarmed or amazed that there was absolutely no visible security when we entered the statehouse. The norm has certainly been for pretty stringent precautions when entering the vast majority of capitols, something I have no qualms about in this day and age in this country.
The Capitol's dome was the only granite dome in the country and the fourth largest in the world! The 34-feet diameter painting at the top was called Resources of Wisconsin and was a full 200 feet above the ground floor. What appeared to be a frame around the painting was actually a balcony.
Each of the four magnificent glass tile mosaics in the four arches contained about 100,000 pieces of tile and represented liberty plus the three branches of government.
There were 43 kinds of stone used to construct the capitol from six other countries and eight states. In the Rotunda were examples of marble from Greece, Algeria, Italy, and France, and granite from Norway and Wisconsin.
When we began our self-guided tour on the second floor we were on the lookout for the more than 1800 badgers representing the state animal on view in the building! The Badger State got its nickname from lead mining towns in the 1830s when the miners who lived in shelters dug into hillsides were called 'badgers' after the burrowing animals.
Hooray - we found one at least, above the entrance to the Hearing Room!
Stunning ironwork on the doors and railings:
The Supreme Court was, alas, closed but that was definitely the norm from our experience.
The doors to the Senate had been left open, whether by intention or mistake, we didn't know so we scurried in to take a peek. The mural at the front, The Marriage of the Atlantic and the Pacific, commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal. The groom represented the former while the bride represented the latter and the figure in the middle was America. As pretty as the mural was, I just couldn't understand why the Panama Canal would have mattered particularly to the upper Midwest state of Wisconsin.
An attractive skylight adorned the ceiling.
Steven and I were equally lucky that the Assembly Chamber was also open to nosy visitors! It was fun to learn that Wisconsin had the first electric voting machine in the world in 1917.
The columns were Italian Breche Violette, something I'd never heard of before.
The skylight in the Assembly Chamber was the largest of four in the capitol.
This Wisconsin mural made more sense to me as it illustrated the state's past, present, and future. The woman on the rock was the state and the surrounding three women represented the bodies of water bordering the state. Surprise, surprise, also in the painting was the state animal, the badger!
If you click on the photo to make it bigger, you'll see Old Abe, the eagle on the ledge in front. The Civil War mascot to the 8th Infantry Regiment from Eau Claire was named after President Abraham Lincoln. When the original Old Abe died, his body was mounted and displayed in the second statehouse but he was lost when the building burned in 1904. This eagle was a replica of Old Abe.
The Wisconsin Veterans' Memorial was erected in 1933 and included the state flag, the US flag, five from the branches of the military, and the Red Arrow of the 32nd Infantry Division. The flags were dedicated to Wisconsin veterans who served the cause of freedom during armed conflict and peace times.
The bell at the entrance to the south main corridor was, like others we'd seen in other capitals, a copy of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Depending on who has their facts straight, it was one of either 53 or 55 made in France and given to each state, the District of Columbia, and territory in a Savings Bond drive in 1950. The other replica bells had been outside.
Just outside the Governor's Conference Room was the USS Wisconsin Badger Display. In 1901, the state presented this bronze badger to the US Navy for installation on the recently completed battleship, USS Wisconsin. The badger was originally mounted on Wisconsin's pilothouse and was cast with bronze salvaged from Spanish cannons captured in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The badger remained on the USS Wisconsin until the ship was scrapped in 1922 and was brought to the statehouse in 1988.
All we could glimpse of the entrance to the conference room were these paintings.
We spoke at some length with the police officer outside the governor's office as I figure he must have been quite bored with nothing to do. I was quite surprised at how frank he was about the stress of being an officer in the capitol building and how now he couldn't wait to get home when his shift ended at 3. That contrasted sharply with before the current strife when he and his fellow officers wanted to stay on the job. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the Covid-19 vaccine, how news organizations are reporting the events of the day, how there are of course 'bad apples' among police officers, and how they are put in terrible positions as their counterparts were on January 6th at the US Capitol in DC.
What a stunning, stunning capitol we thought as we left - it easily ranked among the top five of those we'd visited.
The Wisconsin statue atop the dome represented the state motto Forward and held a globe with an eagle on it in one hand. On her helmet was the state animal the badger naturally!
The capitol grounds, while pretty, were surprisingly devoid of all statues, unlike other state capitals.
Photos of a quiet capital city and of the capitol from other perspectives:
About five miles outside of downtown Madison in the village of Maple Bluff was the Governor's Mansion that overlooked one of the beautiful city lakes. The Southern Classical Revival home was completed in 1929 and has housed the state's governors and their families since 1949.
When we read that Olbrich Botanical Gardens was described as an oasis located on the shores of Lake Monona, that was all we needed to want to go there next. We started in the 40-foot Conservatory which simulated a rainforest environment.
These were so unbelievably vivid I thought they had to be fake at first!
These new-to-us Torch Ginger plants also caught our attention!
Neither of us had remembered seeing these beautiful Variegated Clerodnedrum before either.
This humongous photomural was based on a photo taken near Iquitos, Peru, on the bank of the Amazon River by Wisconsin native Mark Moffett who has shot more cover photos for National Geographic magazine than anyone else. It naturally reminded us of our time there a few years ago.
This scarlet Mezobromelia also was a native of South America.
In 1916, Michael Olbrich became concerned that residential areas on Madison's east side were becoming increasingly industrial and lacked adequate park facilities. Envisioning a large park and flower garden on land adjacent to Lake Monona, he purchased several parcels of land for a future park that year and an additional 3,500 feet of the lake's shoreline in 1921. The city of Madison took the title of the land that was to become Olbrich Park. The first flower plantings were completed in 1933.
These two Adirondack-style chairs were our little oasis for a good while in the gardens!
Even though initially it looked like a mess, the garden staff were in the process of creating a 'dead hedge' along this pathway. What an innovative idea - I loved the way they were using the 3 Rs of recycling.
The new habitat walls in the Pollinator Residency Project were constructed using limestone, clay bricks, and masonry blocks. How much fun it would be to return next year to see the empty spaces filled with hollow-stemmed nesting material for native bees.
I loved how so much thought and detail was given to every inch of the gardens. Each path, for instance, was unique with a different style of paving material and design, unlike any gardens we had seen before.
An almost peek of the Thai Pavilion and Garden, the only one in the continental US!
Symbolic garden accents had been places throughout the Thai Garden to reflect that country's culture and beliefs. Water jars represented hospitality as they are often placed at the entrance to people's homes to offer refreshment to visitors.
The Lion represented good luck and protected the pavilion.
Elephants, native to Thailand, signified strength, wisdom, and beauty.
Mai Dat was a traditional Thai topiary whose form was replicated with a hardy juniper that had been pruned in an elaborate pom-pom form.
What a treat eyeing the delicate artwork and craftsmanship in the Thai Pavilion or Sala as, in Thailand, such a pavilion would be protected on the grounds of a Royal Palace.
The extraordinary Thai Sala, the only one of its kind in North America, was a gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the city of Madison by the 2001 Thai Chapter of the University Alumni Association.
I don't recall ever seeing a shallower pool like the one next to the Sala.
The Donors' Arch was our last sight at the superb gardens, a place I can't recommend enough to future visitors to Madison.
We found a pretty spot in the park across from the Olbrich Botanical Gardens to fire up our ancient camp stove for a picnic lunch.
Next post: Madison's Holy Wisdom Monastery, the nearby National Mustard Museum, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Unitarian Church.
Posted on July 27th, 2021, from the condo we rented for two weeks here in Gulf Shores, Alabama, that faces a beautiful lagoon and is also directly across from the white sand beach of the Gulf of Mexico. It doesn't get much prettier than this, even if we only get to enjoy it for nine days after the owner double booked his property!
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