Madison Tour: A Guide from Monona Terrace to Memorial Union Terrace

(40 reviews)

Madison, Wisconsin audio tour: Madison Tour: A Guide from Monona Terrace to Memorial Union Terrace

This is a 1.4mi walking tour

It takes an average of 60 mins to complete.

Madison, Wisconsin

The United States

$8.99

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About the Tour

Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, is a city with many names. It’s been called Madtown and the People’s Republic of Madison. It’s also been known as the Berkeley of the Midwest and the City of Four Lakes. On this walking tour, you’ll step back in time and relive the city’s rich history through the ages. You’ll hear about the Native Americans who first inhabited this land before jumping forward in time to the Civil War. I’ll also tell you about the riots of the 1960s, and the very different atmosphere that characterized the 1970s, when the city’s annual pink flamingo prank originated.

This hour-long tour starts on Monona Terrace overlooking Lake Monona. You’ll stroll around the Wisconsin State Capitol and the Dane County Farmers Market before heading down popular State Street. Finally, you’ll make your way through the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus to end the tour on Memorial Union Terrace, overlooking Lake Mendota. Along the way, I’ll tell you about the Wakandjaga people who built the area’s effigy mounds, and how Camp Randall got its start as a Civil War training camp. You’ll see Elizabeth Link Peace Park, named after a prominent Madison peace activist, and hear about the mass student protests that took place here in the 1960s. You’ll also see architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest masterpiece within Madison and hear how it led to a 60-year debate about whether it was too grand for such a modest city.

On this Madison walking tour, you’ll also have the opportunity to:

Find out how the plastic pink flamingo became Madison city’s official bird
Hear how the 1960s changed the city – and the country
Discover the meaning behind the Memorial Union Terrace chairs
Relive the Mifflin Street Block Party and hear how it first began
Listen to the story of Otis Redding’s tragic death
Get to the bottom of Madison’s official motto, “77 square miles surrounded by reality”
Pop into Der Rathskeller restaurant which first allowed women inside in the 1940s
Become familiar with Madison’s literary legacy
Unlock the secrets hidden under the surface of Lake Mendota

Join writer Frank Bures for this walk through the city’s past, for a glimpse of how modern Madison came to be.

Tour Producer

Frank Bures

11 tours

Frank Bures is an award-winning writer and essayist. His books include Pushing the River: An Epic Battle, a Lost History, a Near Death, and Other True Canoeing Stories, Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology, and The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes, which Newsweek called one of the best travel books of the decade.

His work has appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, Outside, and other publications, and has been included or selected as “Notable” in the Best American Travel Writing, Best American Essays and Best American Sports Writing nineteen times.

Apart from giving tours of his hometown, Bures has tracked down genital thieves in Nigeria, gone on Sasquatch expeditions in the north woods and competed in the World Rock Skipping Championships on the Great Lakes. He has interviewed everyone from sitting U.S. Senators to Klingon Karaoke aficionados to plant psychics. He has lived in Italy, Tanzania, New Zealand and Wisconsin. He still speaks Italian and Swahili passably well, and used to be able to get by in Thai. Currently he lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters, not far from the Mississippi River, which he grew up on further to the south.

Preview Location

Location 13

The 60s

Stop here for a moment.

Look to your right, between the buildings on the north side of the street. That's the Elizabeth Link Peace Park, which is named after a prominent Madison peace activist. It's is also one of the places where Vietnam War protesters clashed with police ... Stop here for a moment.

Look to your right, between the buildings on the north side of the street. That's the Elizabeth Link Peace Park, which is named after a prominent Madison peace activist. It's is also one of the places where Vietnam War protesters clashed with police in the 1960s, a decade that defined the city.

1950’s Madison was quiet, brainy and Midwestern. But in 1965, around 30 faculty members at the University held a “Teach-In” on the Vietnam War. After that, cultural changes that had already begun went into overdrive. The year 1966 saw protests against the draft organized by Students for a Democratic Society. But in 1967, those student protests morphed into something much bigger.

The Vietnam War was ramping up, and Dow Chemical Company was doing employment interviews in what's now Ingraham Hall. Dow was the manufacturer of Napalm, the incendiary gel dropped on Vietnamese villages and forests to burn them.

As we continue this story, let's start walking down State Street again, in the same direction you were going before we stopped.

On October 17 1967, protesters filled Commerce Building and blocked anyone who wanted to interview with Dow. There were four police officers on the scene who felt badly outnumbered. Reinforcements arrived and they pushed the roughly 200 protesters out of the building, beating them with batons.

Outside, the crowd swelled. They started throwing rocks, sticks and bricks at the police, who responded with tear gas for the first time. The officers then circled the Commerce building, and by that afternoon, the crowd had dispersed. Later that night, on the Library Mall, 3,000 students voted to boycott classes until the police were banned from campus.

Here in Madison, according, to local historian Stu Levitan, there were five forces that drove the events of the last decade. These included the University, urban renewal, the civil rights struggle and the fight over Monona Terrace.

But it was the student antiwar protests that left the deepest mark on the city, and the country, and maybe even the world. The Dow Protest was the first violent anti-war protest, and it struck a national chord. Suddenly Madison was at the center of the anti-war movement, which accelerated and spread. Four days later, in Washington, the March on the Pentagon took place, which saw 100,000 people demonstrating against the war and trying to occupy the Pentagon. The times were changing, and so was Madison.

As a side note, future Vice President Dick Cheney was also a student here during the Dow protests. He did not take part.

The student revolution essentially ended on August 24 1970, when a bomb exploded at Sterling Hall, targeting - and missing - the Army Mathematics Research Center. The blast injured three people and killed a researcher and father of three, named Robert Fassnacht. Three of the bombers were arrested. One, Leo Burt, was still at large at the time of this recording.

Keep walking down the left hand side of State Street. Read More

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Major Landmarks

Olin Terrace
Wagon train monument
Otis Redding Memorial
Lake Monona
Wisconsin State Capitol
Dane County Farmers' Market
Forward Statue
State Street
The Orpheum Theater
Lisa Link Peace Park
Camp Randall Stadium
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University Book Store
Library Mall
Memorial Library
Red Gym
Wisconsin Historical Society
Bascom Hill
Memorial Union
Der Rathskeller
Alumni Park at UW-Madison
Lake Mendota

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Getting There

Route Overview

VoiceMap tours follow a route from a set starting point. It’s how we give turn-by-turn directions and tell a story greater than the sum of its parts.

Start location
1 John Nolen Dr, Madison, WI 53703, USA
Total distance

2km
Final location
800 Langdon St, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Distance back to start location

2km

Directions to Starting Point

Start: 2 W Wilson St, Madison, WI 53703

The tour starts where Martin Luther King Junior Blvd comes to a "T" at Wilson St. There you'll find a small, half-circle plaza between Monona Terrace and the Capitol building.

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

There are many great restaurants in Madison, both on the Capitol Square, and along state street. There are also food trucks during the day on on the Capitol Square and at the Library Mall. On Saturdays in the morning and early afternoon in warmer months, be sure to take in some of the Dane County Farmer's Market.

Best time of day

Any time, though it will be most pleasant in daylight hours, from Spring to Fall.

Precautions

Like any city, you should be aware of our surrounding. But Madison in general is very safe compared to other American cities.

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