Lake, City, Lake

Linda Burton posting from Madison, Wisconsin – Seen from outer space, it’s clear. “Lake, City, Lake” is the trademark for Madison, Wisconsin and that’s just what you see – Lake Mendota, then the city, centered on an isthmus, then Lake Monona. Madison is actually described as the City of Four Lakes; besides those two are Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa; they are south of the city but part of the four successive lakes of the Yahara River. There is even a fifth, Lake Wingra; connected to the Yahara by Wingra Creek and within the city limits. So what do you do with all that water? Well, you enjoy it. The sight of it enhances everything else; it’s just plain pretty to look at, day or night. And of course you play on it, summer, winter, spring and fall. So just how did Madison, Wisconsin, a pleasant city that’s home to 233,209 (US 2010 Census) pleasant residents, have the good fortune of being estabished in such an ideal location, and being selected as the perfect spot for the capital of the state? It all started with a man by the name of James Duane Doty (1799-1865), an ambitious fellow from New York who had some good luck, and some bad. He headed west at a young age, settling in Detroit in 1818, where he began practicing law. In 1820 he participated in an expedition led by Michigan Territory’s governor, Lewis Cass, to the headwaters of the Mississippi River; that brought him some recognition and gave him a taste of the wilderness further west. President James Monroe appointed him to a federal judgeship; that brought him to Green Bay in 1824. Well aware of the travel hazards between the west and east sides of Lake Michigan, Doty petitioned Congress to split Michigan Territory into two parts. » read more