About this meeting
- Government Body
- Farmland Preservation Plan Steering Committee
- Meeting Type
- Farmland Preservation Plan Steering Committee
- Location
- Dane County, WI
- Meeting Date
- January 14, 2025
Transcript
831 sections (from 870 segments)
So I will call to order the Dane County Heritage Preservation Commission of January 14. I'll call it to order. Our first consideration is the minutes. And so if you have read them and want to approve them, I'll look for someone to move such.
I move approval of the minutes.
This is Tim. I second.
Okay. Any corrections or additions, revisions? Hearing none. All in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
Aye. Any
any nos? Minutes pass. Thank you. So now we are going to start to dig in on the nominations. I take it presentations is next, even though it's D. It should be C, I take it. And we'll just take the review of the nominations, the marker project. This is where, I guess, you might want to say a few things, Brian.
Sure. So hopefully people had an opportunity to review some of the things on the website about what with some of the detail about each of these nominations. It came from a variety of different folks. We had, I think, 42 nominations entirely, and actually 43, I think, in total. And then what staff have done at the request of this commission at the last meeting was to try and put together a scoring rubric or sheet.
And then based on the recommendations that we discussed at our last meeting, so we're talking the spreadsheet that we have up on the screen now talks about the proposal, who it was submitted by, if it was submitted on behalf of an organization, what organization that was, the community that was identified by the nominee about who it represented, a staff assessment of whether or not it served underrepresented communities. We also did some research to see if there was an existing marker at some of those locations using the historic marker database, and those are linked where we could find those markers. In some cases, we had multiple nominations. Sometimes you'll see these actually submitted, you know, two different items there in some cases, because there's some slightly different aspects of it. They could be, it could potentially be two markers, but it's the same site or same event.
But in some cases, we also had more than one nomination for particular site. So that's noted in that column. The next column is blank because we felt that this
was something that the Commission would be in
the best position to evaluate, which is the historic or cultural significance. So ranking the each of those sites by those criteria.
We
also had a criteria as to whether it was on public land. There are three categories here. One is three is fully public. Two is that it's private, but there's public right of way nearby, sidewalk, pathway, something like that. And one is completely private without readily accessible public right of way.
Willing landowner, most of these are going be not known because we haven't contacted many of them. In some cases, in the few cases that we have, that's indicated here. I don't think there's anyone who's identified as one. Most of these are not known. Part of what staff was anticipating as part of this process is that when after the Commission narrows the field down a bit, the things that it feels are responsive to the charge of the historic marker program and that they serve underrepresented communities and they're historically significant, Staff would be prepared to contact all those landowners.
We have mailing addresses for them. We'll be sending them postcards with information about, you know, what the nomination is and solicit their opinion and time for the public hearing that hopefully the Commission will set the timeframe for that. And then, finally, the last piece is whether or not they're visible or accessible to the public. So three being very accessible, two being moderately accessible, one poorly accessible, and zero inaccessible. Those were the criteria that we used to sort of evaluate these.
And then I had sent the spreadsheet out, I think, the commissioners earlier last month, and our Chair, Rick Bernstein, took a stab at identifying the ones that he felt were appropriate for the historical markers programs, and those are highlighted in yellow. So that's the work that's been done so far. I think it's up to the chair and the Commission's prerogative how they want to proceed with this. If people want me to bring up any of the more detailed information about any of these items from the website, we can do that as well. Yeah,
so I'll just add that the highlighting I did was just my interpretation of whether or not they met the primary criteria as an underrepresented immunity appropriate for a marker. So I just kind of weeded out or did kind of a quick cut off the top of those that I felt didn't really meet that criteria as representing an underrepresented community. But it's always open for discussion. But I thought it would be easier, as we go through this list, if we could cut off from the top things that just don't meet their criteria. So Brian, are there any comments or questions at this point?
I'm now finding it hard to bring up that document. Yours. Okay. I think it's attached to the revised agenda.
Should be.
Yeah. But like the link
You had it a minute ago, didn't you?
I thought I did.
Anyway. That's the proposal scoring worksheet.
Yeah. It's that it's with the yellow on it. So it's
Oh, revised? It's the yeah. It should be that first,
the management.
Never mind.
Okay. We're back. Yep. Does everyone have that in front of them? Because I I think, Brian, what we wanna do is figure out how we rank these in terms of that criteria, cultural significance
Mhmm.
Historic cultural significance. So that's where the commission will add its viewpoint in that column to see Yes. How these rank.
And I'm gonna have over here, I'm gonna have the Excel version of that up, so I can enter those in, we can take notes with that.
Okay.
So is that our job right now, you think, Brian? To kind of go through what we have?
I think so, yes. And then if there's any of those that you want to see more detail on, let me know, and we can go to the to the map, the online map, and and bring that up.
And we can also do that ourselves, right, with
Yes. You that those links should be in the agenda. Links to what? Links to the online map.
Oh, okay. The map. Gotcha. So are people comfortable voting on these? I guess each person would rank it one through five, and then we'll do kind of a averaging of the score. Sure.
I just wanted to speak up real quickly and just mention that we do have some participants here with us. I've if they want to answer a question or be available for questions, to raise their hand, and we'll and I'll bring them up. We have Heather Bailey, Ibrahim Syed, Janet Murphy, Jason Tisch, and Jennifer Dorril on as participants today.
So we're allowing them to ask questions?
I'm sorry. Those those are the people who registered. We had Heather Bailey, Janet Murphy, and Jennifer Dorril are actually in attendance right now.
So are we to allow them to ask questions? Or It's
the commission's discretion.
Okay. Mhmm. Should we give them an opportunity for comment at this point?
There is an item on the agenda for comments on items not on the agenda. Right. And they'd be certainly welcome to speak at that, but I I leave it to the commission's discretion whether they wanna entertain.
Well, I recognize a couple names as people who submitted some of these nominations. Correct? Yes. Do people want to hear from them now?
I don't mind, but I thought that that's sort of what we were doing later, was having public
There'll be a public hearing, yes, later. So, I mean, everyone who submitted one will have an opportunity to speak on their proposal or on other proposals when you set the public hearing. So there's no obligation, I think, on the Commission's part to hear from people except from the items on the not on the agenda.
But they took the time to show up.
They took the time to show up.
And I appreciate that. So I don't mind.
I would wouldn't mind giving them each two to three minutes to just give us their viewpoints.
Is there well, let me just ask this. Is there any of the attendees here who wish to speak at this time? That's good. And if so, just raise your hand. Okay. I'm not seeing anything at this point.
Oh, okay. Alright. So we'll save that towards the end. Thank you for being here. Are people comfortable with working on this list using my edits with those highlighted in yellow?
I am, but I would like some backup. And I'm not able to sign into the map, you know, just to be able to
You're not able to sign into the map.
It's asked for an account.
History one?
Oh. Make sure
that I'm just doing Okay.
I thought that was I thought I had made that public. Let me see if I can fix that now.
I forgot that.
As much as I'd like to have yet another account and password in the world, see if we can solve that.
I'm sorry about that.
It's
alright. No. It that's an error on my part.
Should be
let's see here.
Actually got that, Brian, and I went back in and tried again.
Okay.
I'll try again too.
Oh.
Yep. This time I'm in.
I don't
know if you did something or not.
Alright. Well,
appreciate that.
Oh, nice. Yep. You're in too. Yeah. I was going through the whole creating an account thing and all.
There it is.
Skip that. So
okay. Everyone in?
Mhmm.
Alright. Well, I think the first one we wanna look at is the Ada Deer home. And we're to rank it one through five, five being most significant, one least. And I will start it off, and I will rank that a five. And then I'll
I'm sorry. What's the scale? One through five is the scale, but what's the
Five is the most significant. One would be the least.
I would agree.
Can we give it a five? Erica gives it a five.
I I was gonna do, like, a three.
Patrick, was that a three? Three. Tim and Can you see my hand, though? I can't.
Oh, sorry.
That's alright. I see myself on the video, but not you guys can't see it. I held up five fingers.
Five. Okay. Five.
K.
So, Brian, you're scoring while we're doing this.
Right? Yep. And then
So that's I'm sorry. That was three five and 13. Is that correct?
213.
3.
3. And
13.
313. Alfonso?
Yes, 5.
5?
5. Okay. Next one is Bernard Bernard. Bernard residence hall. I will give that a 3.
Shall we just go alphabetical? So would that be Kurt, did you I'll I'll give it a three. I guess we don't need to. For me, that's also a three.
K.
I'm gonna give it a five for now, and I'm gonna
Hedge your bets.
Hedge my bets. Just because I
honestly did not do a all women stuff column. So I've
got a quick question. I know that we can score based on what we've got here, and this was a question that I had whenever we found out, you know, that I was gonna ask, but then we digressed to our guests in the audience. So at least one of these has information. The the the the daycare facility, jab designed by the Japanese architect. So Japanese Americans have an interest in that, but so do architects.
And so whenever we think about cultural history or cultural significance, I I I think you know? I mean, I'm comfortable with our current approach, but I wonder sometimes if we didn't have other information. Like, for instance, does this appeal to a different professional community or a different segment of the population? If that wouldn't also get us to think differently. Again, I'm comfortable with what we're doing.
I think we can add to it. I think we're working off what we know. But, yeah, I think architecture could be a level of significance. But I think our primary objective is underrepresented communities, so I think that should be our our primary interest. Does that make sense?
Total sense and agreed completely on that basis. It would I we'll we'll see if, quote, unquote, tiebreakers
Okay. Might be needed.
And my question for a member of the audience?
You have a question for a member
of the
partner. Jason Tisch? Are you there?
Jason is not in attendance.
Oh. Oh,
I thought I heard that.
He's registered to attend, but he doesn't
know you.
Got it. Okay. Because, again, I just, not having done enough research here, just wanted some backup on whether Barnard is Madison Landmark or National Register. I
It's probably on the National Register.
Well, probably, but is it?
Because there was a campus. Well, the lower campus is all part of a historic district,
Bassman I like I needed to have done more
work I safety think the on the interactive map, we should have the AHI link for it. Let me see.
Oh, yes you do.
Some information.
Not listed.
Barnard.
Not listed. Not listed. Nope. Okay. Okay. That's what I need to know.
Okay. Has I don't think everyone's voted in terms of Nope. Bernard. Go back to
our spreadsheet. Okay. I've got two threes and a five so far.
Tim would vote.
Sorry. Tim what?
Tim votes three. Okay.
Three here as well. I'm we're flying by to see my pants trying to read the stuff on the interactive map now that I've gotten into it.
So Yeah. And then finding the thing on the map that
we're talking about. Yeah.
The if it helps, the column on the side is in alphabetical order.
It does help. Oh.
In the interactive map? Oh, yeah. It is. Okay.
And you can click on if you click on the picture, it will take you to the detail as well. Okay. I think that's all the votes for Barnard Residence Hall. Okay. Cardinal Barr. Cardinal Barr.
I'll I'll rank that a four, and that is on the National Register.
Yeah. Thank you.
Five for me. Five? Five.
Four for me or
Five.
Five. Tim says five.
One second.
Knocking them down. Carson and Beatrice Gully Home.
This was one we got two nominations for.
Oh, we did? Yes. Oh, that's cool. Oh, one's anonymous, and one's me.
Yes.
Should I recuse myself?
I your decision.
Okay. Well, if unless there's an objection, I will vote. I will give it a five.
Yeah. I actually agree. It should be a five, and I don't see any reason for one of us to recuse ourselves from nomination.
Thank you.
I would also give it a five.
This is called
Tim says five. Yeah.
Yours yours is odd.
I'm throwing up my luster. No.
Try zooming your map out, maybe.
Yeah. It will react to your map.
Oh, so
I have to all the way out, you'll find it again. Mhmm.
Yeah. If you get too close, it's only showing what
it's Didn't realize that. I just thought it had everything. Okay.
Also, a spelling error on African American on that Mhmm. In the map. Okay. Just FYI.
I will correct that. It's probably how it was submitted to us.
Yeah. I have to follow a link now.
Patrick, I think Yeah.
Five.
Give it a five. Five. Okay. Catholic Multicultural Center.
And this also received two nominations.
I see. I will give it a three.
I will give it a four.
Four.
This is Tim. I'll give it a three. K. Four.
Thank you. Dividing ridge, excavated.
I wanna just get back to the CCC buildings.
Oh, I'm sorry.
No. It's okay. I just thought it was curious if the community identified was conservationists.
Mhmm.
And maybe somebody could speak to that, only because it seems to me that though Are we
That was what was identified by the nominator.
Okay.
So person, the individual who submitted that, that's what they filled out on the survey form. It's not to say that that's the only group that might, it might represent. I mean, I think to make independent judgments of that. Yeah,
because the CCC built things for everybody.
Right.
And so we're not necessarily wouldn't be calling attention to it because it's important to the conservationists, but it's important to everybody because the conservationists built it. So that's why I found that was I don't have a better recommendation except everybody, you know, which is not underrepresented then.
Right.
So maybe I just talk myself out of it.
Okay. No. It's worth just making sure.
Anybody else?
That that's similar to my thinking is that it didn't really fit the model that we've devised for this project.
Yeah. I think I think having said that all out loud, I would agree. And I think yep. Withdrawn.
Okay. Anybody else about the four there, Civilian Conservation Corps and the Forest Depot? Anybody feel that we should give that more of a chance, or are we comfortable moving on to Dividing Ridge?
Don't pull that.
Okay. Dividing Ridge, we have two of one excavated, one hilltop. Dividing Ridge excavated, I will give that a two.
I would recommend that they be merged.
Okay. Anybody else feel
With I mean, because the hilltop is a physical thing that's there that you can see and understand. And then if the information about it includes the excavated, then we don't have to deal with where do we put the sign on a thing that doesn't exist.
Well, to be clear, maybe I can show you this on the map, but there is there's a possible spot where you could have a marker that would show the cliff face. So Okay. There's there's a park I'm sorry. The cliff face from the excavated area. If you, so there's it's actually in part of the the operational grounds of the Henry Vilas Zoo.
But there is actually at that location, you it would be at the base of the area that was, excavated. So if you look at here, let me put this share this screen.
So
you'll see this is the Henry and Viola Zoo out to the south and then you can almost see it on the topo map, but this area here is the ridge that what's left, what was excavated. So everything south of that was excavated and you can still see the relief, the stone there that's formed a cliff. And then up here is the city park on the hilltop, where there is an existing marker up on the top of the hill. It's fairly vague and doesn't have a lot of information about sort of the rest of it talks about the mound, it doesn't talk about the whole bridge.
And there is a bound a bare effigy mound?
Yes. That's correct. So that's one of the ones that's still extant on that site.
So one of the 11 Yes. Yes.
It's The bear is separate, right? The bear is the bear mound? Or is there also a bear on the hilltop? There's two bears?
Just one bear that I know of.
Cause the bear itself, I believe, is individually designated?
This shows it a little better, right? So, you can see that here are some of the mounds up here, including a bird mound, and I'm not sure which one of these is the Bear Mound, but there's a plaque there. And then here's the cliff, and then these are Vilas Park Zoo buildings down at the bottom of the cliff.
So just to be clear, you're saying that there is a bear in this mound group in which when there's also a bear a couple blocks over, the actual Bear Mound Park. So I just wanna make sure that the bear mound that's separate is not I I mean, it might be included in this whole mound group.
Well, it's a good question. Let me see here. So I thought we had here, let me go back to this.
It might be neither here neither here nor there, and I wanna talk about this just sort of in general about the mounds because all the mounds are National Register, local Madison landmarks on their own already. And it's not that I don't want them to have attention, but if they already do have that in another way, I wonder if we don't need to recognize them again as a county, because otherwise we need to go through and recognize all of the mounds. Right?
Okay. I think you are correct. I think that that's
Yeah, that's the
bear about The bear marker and the mound that we're talking about is in Bear Mound Park, not in Vilas Park.
But it might be considered part of the larger group because I know that there's also some mounds in people's backyards that are part of that group too.
Is that park part of the ridge? No. I think
it's well, it's on top of the ridge, I believe.
The Bear In The Round Park is part of The Ridge?
I believe so because it's a very high location, so it must have well, I guess we don't know.
Okay. So we are talking with these two nominations for The Ridge. They are in very distinct locations, it appears.
Yeah. Well, one sort of tells the story of what's left, and one tells the story of what's not left. Right?
Right.
And I feel like they're related. But, again and and, again, not to not recognize mounds, but do we feel that they are indeed recognized enough in their own in a different way? If they're not, then let's do something. But I don't know why this mound group necessarily should be Dane County, and the rest aren't.
So just to be clear, so here's Bear Mound I'm sharing this, okay. Here's Bear Mound Park, which is where the bear marker is. I'll correct that in the sheet. Here's the top of the dividing ridge, which is this image here, and then this is the excavated portion at the bottom of what was excavated in the Viospark Zoo. So there is no marker associated with these particular these particular mounds.
There are mounds, you're saying, at the outside of the round park?
Yeah. Right here.
They still exist?
Yeah. This is this is 2022 digital elevation model Okay. Photography.
Yeah. The ones you can see
are just the conical ones. And then there's a number of conical mounds here.
Well, again, I just feel like to either either we do all the mounds or we don't. Right? And are you just saying it's because these particular mounds do not have their own marker where the other ones do? Or it's
I I I think what if I can talk about sort of the what I envisioned as the intention from the person who submitted it is
Thank you.
What they wanted to talk about was I mean, the idea was there were mounds there. There was a whole lot of mounds. Most of them were destroyed. Right. As part of the creation of the Madison Street Network.
Right. So, I think, you know, the the intention was to show both the fact that this was, you know, in a place that was important to indigenous Americans for a thousand of years but also to document the story about how they were destroyed. And so, I think it the the intention from both of the submittals that we got made it pretty clear that that what they wanted to talk about was the Dividing ridge, and the fact that it used to be one of the most prominent geological features on the Madison Isthmus, and that much of it is now gone. And that story, I don't think, is told in any of the other mound markers in that area. So yes, you're right, there's markers for Bear Mound, which is off isolated by itself.
That marker really just talks about this is a mound and it was built and it was important to the Native American. Doesn't tell any of the rest of that story. So I think that was the that was certainly the intention that, you know, we got from the survey materials that were submitted to us.
And given that historical context, it's one of the reasons I would I was planning on ranking that high, like, five. So Mhmm. And to me, I I don't know why we would distinguish between the hilltop and the excavated area. It's all part and parcel, I think. Was it was it two different people that Two different
people submitted something for Dividing Ridge. So Okay. We had That's
the two the two lines in the spreadsheet. Right?
Yeah. So we got Nick Smith and Cindy Schleekde. Cindy was nominating this on behalf of the Greenbush Neighborhood Association, and Nick was nominating it on his own behalf as an individual.
I would agree that the dividing ridge itself is important. And if the two nominations could be linked so that the story you know, so that you see one and you understand that there's another marker elsewhere to understand the other part of it. But, again, I would say that all the mounds in Madison basically were destroyed in some way by the Madison Street's grid. Right? So I'm not trying to lessen these mounds. I'm just saying it's I think all of them are important to Dane County. Maybe So we address that another time. I
don't think that not having the ability to do all the mounds in one full sweep should prevent us from doing this Sounds good.
Okay.
Because it is a very unique story in terms of how those mounds survived or didn't survive, and because it's a distinct geological feature that we're going to talk about as well. So there is an underlying story to it all. But I think one marker for both of arising from those two nominations might be a good objective.
Or if two markers, they relate to each other. There's note on one to see the other, you know, that they
Right. Yeah, the trick will be how to tell the story from one location or two.
I mean, some of this
That'll be complicated to do it from two.
Rick, some of this may be for the topic later on our agenda, when we're talking about marker design and style of marker. Yeah. It's also possible that different sites may lend themselves to different styles of markers. If you had a marker that was more of a park informational sign type of thing, you could put more information about it that might convey that story in a way that would be different from a brass plaque.
Yes. Excellent point. Okay. Because this is telling a much bigger, more complicated, far ranging topic. And so having visual graphics would really be very important to really communicate that story.
Because not everybody can have access to that topographical map when they're looking at it too. I mean, when you see that map, it's incredible to see the mound shapes, which are really not that visible when you're there, because the grass grows on, you know?
Yeah. Okay, well, think our job now is just to read it one through five, and then we can talk about how to turn that into a marker or an interpretive plaque. So I will give it a five.
Which one? Both?
I would like to combine the two and try to tell that story
I would agree.
With one fell swoop. And I'll I'll note that in the notes that we're Okay. The recommendation is combine them.
Same here. Five? Two fives? Combined. Yes.
Yeah. Okay.
I'll give that a five also.
Tim, five. K.
Did you vote? I did. You did? Did you give it a five?
I said five combined.
Oh, okay. One two three
four one more. Great. So now we have two Eston, Hemmings, Jefferson.
Does anyone want to talk about the Ebenezer Brigham home before Oh, moving
sorry. Before we pass over Ebenezer, do people feel that does or doesn't represent the mission of this project?
Not familiar enough.
He was an original settler dating back to the mid-nineteenth.
European permanent settler in Dane County.
Yeah.
It was a lead miner, I believe.
So it's significant, but not necessarily In our context. Right.
Bookmark it? Bookmark it. There's also
a marker for Brigham Park in the vicinity that tells some of that story.
So we'll we'll get back to that one, but we'll skip it for now. People okay with that?
Yeah. We don't have a picture anyway, do we? Or oh, I'm sorry. The map out. It's out there.
It is in
Oh, so the reason this would have been brought up is because this is one of those places that isn't covered by another municipality that can grab it as a landmark.
Say again?
The reason I would understand that this is on this sheet here is because it's it's out it's outside of any other municipality that can grab it as a landmark. So it's not a Madison landmark. It's not a
To be clear, the reason it's on the sheet is because it was nominated by someone. K. We didn't we didn't make any judgments about that, and we didn't kick anyone off of that on that basis. So
I do think we are trying to represent the rural parts of the county because
That's what I mean.
Yeah. I think when we get to the point of deciding which of these markers we're actually going to proceed with, I think that could be a deciding point to raise. Okay. But at this point, I think we're just trying to decide on its historical merit or if it fee fits the mission of the project at hand.
It's more of the mission than the merit.
Yeah. Right. It's obviously an important historical individual, but does it meet that definition of underrepresented community?
No.
Early white settler. Right. So that's why I was comfortable skipping it. But if other people feel differently, we say so. Okay.
Going back to Eston Hemings Jefferson, the youngest son of president Jefferson and Sally Hemings, lived in Madison for four years in the mid-1850s. And so there are two sites to consider, his grave along with his family in Forest Hills Cemetery, or what I believe, the research I've done, we'd have to confirm it, but I believe he lived in a house that's now a Madison City garage. So if we can get permission from the city to put a marker somewhere within that public property right away, it could tell the story of Eston and his family who grew up here in Madison.
By the way, we do have this was also submitted to us twice. Right. One of the people who submitted it, Janet Murphy, is in attendance if anyone Okay. Wanted to ask a question of her.
Okay. Any questions for Janet as the submitter of one of these?
Janet has her hand up.
Alright. Let's give Janet a minute to speak. Janet, you should be able to talk now.
Sure. Thanks.
I you know, we still have the mounds up on the screen. I wanted to tell you there is an old marker at the dividing ridge. It's one of the old kind of brass plates on a stone embedded in a stone. It may even be from the forties. It's pretty old. So just so you have that for your information. Back to I call him Easton. That means Jefferson. I'm not sure if he's Easton. Okay.
I don't know why I call him that. And, yes, the family's there. It's an important story about after the slave Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850. Did I get that right and the words right? That the Hemings family got paranoid living so close to the border.
And I think they were at that point after Jefferson died, they had moved to Ohio, Southern Ohio, but they were still quite close to the slave states, and they everyone was worried they were gonna get picked up. So that's why Easton moved up to Madison. And then his family and and the kids rather flourished here somewhere in the civil war. They were good entrepreneurs. Easton himself was an excellent violin player, no doubt taught by his father.
And and it's also the story of of, you know, the old one drop rule. The many members of the family some not all, but many members of the family chose to pass as Caucasian when they moved up north for a better opportunity. So I did not know his there was a place that people knew where his house was, so I thought that was quite wonderful.
Yes. That's from what little research I was able to do, that's my understanding. But like I said, it would need to be confirmed.
Yeah. I didn't actually review my research before I came on this, but does anyone else have any questions for me?
Thanks.
Thank you. Thanks, Janet.
Yep. You're welcome.
Appreciate your coming to our meeting. Mhmm. Well, should we take these one at a time? Or is it the significance we're really looking at, and then we can figure out which of the two sites might be best?
I guess with the question of his home site, and you're saying it needs to be verified, can we vote on it yet then if we if it isn't verified? Or how how close are you?
I think what I'd recommend is that we vote on the subject matter of trying to represent his significance to the county and to the Madison. And then we work with these two sites and see which one might actually be best.
Think this is one that takes national significance. I was fortunate to be with historian Annette Gordon Reed, who wrote about Hemings and Jefferson and actually was the person that got the DNA test that put that forward, of proved the connection between the offspring and Jefferson. And for that reason, I think, you know, having this Dane County designation helps bring that story to a more national light. And in that case, I'm of two minds because a gravesite is something we can see, and it exists. But it's harder to find.
You know, you're going into a cemetery looking for something, whereas you might be walking by the other site on the street and just learning something without planning it.
Right.
Which I'm always in favor of. So that was not an answer.
Okay. Well, yeah, I do think we have some work to do to figure out which of these two sites would work. But I I think if we could rank it, then we'd know whether or not to pursue that at all. But I agree with you. I do think it's of national significance, and it's not well known in the community. And so having a marker makes a lot of sense.
Correct.
But I I will give the Easton Hemings Jefferson the his story. I will give that a five, and I would combine these two and see which site actually works better.
I agree with that. And I'm going with Eston just because that is what Annette Gordon Reed used. That's the pronunciation she used as well. But then none of us were around then. So
Alright. Anybody want else to vote?
I'll echo the five vote for for that.
This is Tim. I vote five.
Five.
Five? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Next, the Gay Center of Wisconsin, nominated by Vicki Kenyon, important to the LGBT plus community.
I think it's an important property. I will give it a four.
Likewise, I give it a four.
Does anybody have any information on how long it was at this location? It's the first in 1972, and then it says it moved around.
Yeah. I don't know. This was submitted by Jason Tisch. Let's see. There's some Let's see. Do we have some other links here?
Yeah. I'm just looking at the AHI, but that's based on the historic name. It's part of the Langdon Street Historic District.
So this is from Isthmus 72. Hancock Building froze out the center in 7475, literally cutting off the heat. Center then moved to the basement at Saint Francis House, which is another nomination we have, remained there from 1975 until 1982. Then the center moved down the street to the basement of the University of the United Methodist Church, where it remained until its merger with the United in 1987. Prior to the merger, the Gay Center changed its name to the Madison Gay Resource Center in 1984, and finally to the Madison Gay and Lesbian Resource Center. Moved around a lot. Yep.
So how long do we know how long it was at this one location?
That's what I asked.
It looks like so from 1972 until let's see. Where did we see this? Opened on '72 and then through '75. Oh, three years.
Not very long. But it had several other locations.
After that.
Yeah. Yeah. But that's where it started. Is that right?
That's what we understand. Yes. Okay.
I would give it a five.
I'm sorry. Was the were they the original occupants of the building, or was it Sorry? Were they the occupants of the building?
Don't think so. I think that building was built
It's a residence.
It's a residence. I'm not sure when it was built.
Historical society under the name of the Yeah.
Got it.
Owner the first people.
It clearly looks older than 1972 construction. So
Yeah. And it's a Cloud And Stark building.
This is Tim. I give it five.
Yeah. You know, I wanna change my vote to five as well.
Okay.
So I was looking at those two together in the sort of the same way we're looking at Easton, the the two the the '21 and '22, the Gay Center and the Gay Pride statue. But but because I think that anyhow. So and I also have a little bit of a problem. I've got I I'm traveling tomorrow, and I have to head out. I gotta leave you off, go pack and stuff.
So I'm kind of frustrated that I can't be part of this entire conversation. But I apologize. I I I in terms of the rest of these, the next one, actually well, I'm not gonna say anything. I'm confident y'all in the choices that y'all make. Anyways, thank you very much, and sorry, though. I gotta go.
Sorry. You gotta go, but you gotta go.
Yeah. Thank you, Alfonso.
Yeah. You're
welcome. We we still have quorum, so we have four in attendance, and there's seven members.
Yay. Great.
That's great.
So I have I I just want to clarify. I have three votes for five here so far.
I'm a four. Okay.
There's a four. And Tim, did you vote? Tim?
Please cut me back. I did try to give it a five.
Okay. Yep.
I'm missing someone then. Rick?
Five. Okay.
Can we jump to Saint Francis House just because we're talking about
Sure.
Similar and I'm just interested in the different organizations. So the Gay Center, and then the Saint Francis is is Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality, Madison Gay Sisters. So different organizations.
Though apparently there was some overlap after 1975.
Post Jonelle?
Yes.
Okay.
And what I understand from this was submitted by Jason Tisch those meetings took place in the basement of St. Francis House, a space that's no longer extant. But they picked up the building and moved it. So they didn't take the basement with it. So the basement actually no longer is in. It's not in the same location, but it is the building, the exterior of the building, it representative of of what it looked like when those meetings were taking place.
I remember that move.
You do. Wow.
The landmarks when it happened. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that they are, in theory, the same community but different organizations.
Yes. Do people want to take that one up now since we're on it in terms of
I'm gonna give that one a four just for the integrity the loss of integrity. Mhmm.
Good point. I will give it three for that same reason.
This is Tim. I'd give it a three.
Patrick?
4.
K.
So next up would be the gay pride statue.
Can you talk about the marker that is there?
Yes. That
was put up by.
Hang on. Let me find it. I think we've got a picture of it here.
It's very small.
It is small. Hopefully, that's a little bigger there. But it says, presented by the city of Madison and partially overgrown, I think it's the New Harvest Foundation, presented to the City of Madison by the New Harvest Foundation. I don't know if it has a date on it. Oh, yeah, I don't know if it has a date on the plaque.
I think the artist was George Siegel.
It that's correct.
Yeah. Copy of a statue in another location.
Well, it was originally commissioned for, Greenwich Village.
Right.
And then the New York City Council, so there were two that were originally struck by George Siegel. One was intended for Greenwich Village, right near the Stonewall Inn. The other was intended for Los Angeles. Both of the New York City and the Los Angeles City Councils got cold feet and wouldn't accept the statues. The one that was intended to go to Los Angeles is now in Stanford University.
The one that was intended to go in Greenwich Village was transported to Orton Park in Madison and it stayed there until I think it was 1981 when the city council in New York City finally relented and agreed to install it which is where the statue is now, is in Greenwich Village. So, for a period of time, it lived here in Madison. That statue, the original, lived in Orton Park. Some of the stories we we heard about this is that apparently, Madison residents would put coats on it when it got cold. To try and keep people from getting from from the statues from getting cold.
Mhmm.
I think
it's an interesting story, but I'm curious about the existing plaque and if we would be replacing it, or what's what are we doing?
I don't think we could we don't have authority to replace it.
Right.
I think that was someone else who put that marker up.
And is it
And it would be on city property, so it'd be up to the city, I guess, whoever proposed the marker.
I just don't know if two markers on one spot helps anybody unless the story is not clear on the existing
Mhmm.
Marker. You want I can read it, what the marker says. Please. It says, in 1994, the George Siegel sculpture Gay Liberation was on the site through the efforts of the gay and lesbian community and the New Harvest Foundation. In 1991, the sculpture was moved to its original intended home in New York City's Christopher Park. It is missed. This installation commemorates the sculpture and honors the ongoing liberation of lesbians and gay men. Presented by the city of Matt to the city of Madison by the New Harvest Foundation. The other thing I'd point out is that it appears that there's some damage to the lower right hand corner. I don't know if there was a picture there or what was there on that portion of the plaque.
And then also it's partially overgrown by what appear to be willies of the valley.
Is the New Harvest Foundation, is that a Madison organization?
I don't know.
Is indeed.
Okay.
The only foundation dang high in the channel's contributions exclusively to organizations working to promote LGBTQIA plus rights services founded in 1984, volunteer board of directors. I feel like the existing plaque tells the story. Does. I'm not sure that we can do any better. Can we give them money? Do we have money to give away to help them fix it.
So just to so for a point of clarification, it seems to me there's two considerations that this commission is making. One is what's the relative historic and cultural significance of these submittals? And then separately from that, are we going to invest funds to put a new marker at that location? Yeah. It seems to me that those those are not necessarily related discussions so that you could, for example, in this case, perhaps rank this highly as an incident of historic significance, but then decide, since there's already a marker there, we're not going to invest additional money to put a second one.
I agree.
But all of them remain on the map, regardless of what we do.
That's correct. Yes. So, the recommendation of this commission, we have essentially split this project into two parts. So, we've got a web portal up now that is called the Dane County Community History that includes both the timeline and the interactive map of all the submittals that we've received and then, in addition to that, would be a a program where there would be physical markers at some of those locations.
There'll be other considerations in terms of how we want to spend our money.
Yes, indeed.
Because we only have so much to go around, and there are, you know, three dozen to consider. Right.
Yeah. I appreciate that clarification, because this commissioner is having a hard time separating ranking from education, right? And just ranking
where we get most bang for our buck and most of our things. Sure.
So But we should rank this, right, and move on.
Yeah. Let's rank it. Five. We'll give it a five. I will give it a three. I give it a two. This is 10.
Four.
K. Moving on. H two visa farm workers. And I'll just say I I propose this one, and we just haven't been able to narrow down a location for this. We know it was somewhere in a farm near Mazomene, but we don't have a location. So I do think it's important. But I have to in my own nomination, I have to say that we just don't know where it would go. So I would rank it as a three.
I will follow you with that three then for further consideration at another time.
No. We're not tossing anything out. Right. We'll keep them all on our shortlist for later.
Well, and they're all on the map. So
They're all on the map. We're not gonna get rid of them. Any other votes? This is Tim. I vote three.
I think it's an important story to tell. I just thought a location and something Yeah,
the location that's referenced on this map is just the geographic center of the town of Mesomani. There's no particular significance to it.
It is an important story. I would agree with you, Patrick. I don't think it's an undertold story in terms of agricultural history. But it's not ripe yet for us to give it a marker. So we could give it a five. I wouldn't object to that, but it's just not ready to to actually commit to as a part of the project.
So now we're Yeah.
know. Acting into the worker again.
I'll I'll change my vote. I'll I'll change my vote to a five, and we'll we'll hash out that issue of where to spend the money later.
I'm here. What do you what's your five?
Anybody else wanna change their vote? I I did. Okay. Harry Whitehorse Studio.
And I'm sorry. Erica, you voted three or five? Three. Three. Okay.
So I think we're all familiar with Harry Whitehorse, Ochunk native sculptor, lived and worked in his home in, I believe, his chief auto parts store on Broadway, where I believe he might have done a lot of his work, especially with metal sculpture. It's up for sale. I don't know what will happen to the property, whether or not we'll get permission to put a marker there. It's hard to say. But I will give it a five.
I'll give it a five.
This is Tim. I give it a 5.
Okay. It was 5.
K. K.
Next is Ho Chunk Village and then McFarlane proposed by the McFarlane Historical Society, particularly important to indigenous community.
I have a quick question going back to Harry White Horse. Is it Monona Landmark?
No. Okay. Thanks.
Back to Ho Chunk Village.
I'd like it a five.
I'll give it a five.
Tim gives it a five.
I'll give it a five.
Hope Tavern. People
Hope Tavern.
This is not necessarily identified with any particularly underrepresented community, But this was how it was submitted to us. The interesting thing is this is actually public property now. It's I believe it's called the Training and Education Center, but it's part of the Dane County Solid Waste department associated with the methane plant at the landfill. Really? Yes. Wow. Interesting. I don't know what the future plans are for it, because it's it's in rough shape, the building itself, but Really?
I thought the building was removed.
Not as of last
summer. Who was that?
Was that Tim?
No. It's Kurt. Sorry. Kurt.
Oh, okay. Alright, Kurt. Yeah. Right. It it was still there as of last summer. So if it's been taken down since then, I I was not aware of that.
So there are probably pig plants for that area. No? I don't know. Nothing's known at this point.
Yeah. I'm not sure.
Okay.
What's But
it was recently purchased?
2020. It was acquired by Dan County. Alright. Got it. Interesting.
The question for me is whether or not it meets, you know, the mission of the project, if it represents an underrepresented community.
I think it's similar to Ebenezer.
Yeah. It's early And white
it's it's a location that isn't getting landmarked.
It's yeah. It probably is significant. But is it significant in terms of what we're doing
right now?
So I would give it a two.
I mean, just to be clear, what we did with the Ebenezer Brigham was we, as you made a decision
Oh, we skipped it altogether.
The criteria. So you didn't evaluate the historic preservation. Yeah.
According to historic medicine
It's gone?
07/08/2024, it's gone.
Oh. Oh. There we go. Alright. So the question is whether to skip over it, I guess.
I would say yes. It's an integrity thing, again, where
Okay. And unless there are objections, we'll move on to the Islamic Center of Madison. Do we know how old the building is? Or I
believe it was built in the nineteen eighties. Let me find it, and I think I can confirm that.
And it's still being used for that now? It is. Yes. I would give it a five. Five from Tim?
Sure.
Okay. Moving on. Kanazawa Circle is one that I nominated, But I believe I also nominated the South Madison Daycare Center
Mhmm.
Which relates to the same individual, Henry Kanazawa, who was an architect. Kanazawa's circle was he had worked for Neighborhood House. No, he had worked for Habitat Habitat for for Humanity, and designed probably almost all those houses on Kanazawa Circle.
it's very representative of the work that he did in his later life in retirement. But the neighborhood house was also something he designed in 1968, when that building was first used as a daycare center. I think it's now a neighborhood center.
I think it's still daycare. It's still operated as a daycare center.
Was it like One City Schools in there for a while?
Could be. I mean, yeah, I think, but I think they
operated Okay, so but it's still being used for daycare?
Yes.
Okay. So I guess we have two opportunities to celebrate Henry Kanazawa. I think his work is important, especially when he was working as a volunteer later in life. We have I just mentioned that we just received a lot of his drawings at the Dane County Historical Society, including the drawings for the South Madison Daycare Center.
Do you want to take those two up separately, or do you want to take them, combine them like we've done with some of the others?
I think it is a matter of which one of those sites we would best want to use to represent his significance. But with the South Madison Daycare, I think that building in and of itself is important for how it was used, the community, and the issues of that period in time. So it really tells two stories. And is important to more than just Japanese Americans in relationship to Hinikanazawa, but also African American community in South Madison. So I would think they're both important, but I I like the one the South Madison one in particular because you get a twofer there.
I would agree with that, and I would recommend that perhaps in the future, Kanazawa Circle pursue itself being a national registered district.
Yeah. I
mean, how many homes are there?
Oh, at least a dozen.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, they're from the sixties, so they're 50 plus.
Yeah.
I don't know how old they are, to be honest. How does that work then? So we're voting on Kanazawa Circle first, and I would give it a five.
Same here.
Okay. Five from Tim.
And then the South Madison Daycare Center, I would give that a five.
Same.
Tim, also a five. Okay. Thanks, Todd.
Bye, Todd. I think, you know, when we get down to choosing which of those rank the highest, which ones actually get a marker, we'll kind of look at both of those together side by side. Yeah.
So is that four or five votes for South Madison Day Center?
I believe so. Okay. All right. Okay, moving on. La Mexicana Grocery, submitted by Antonio.
We don't have a tremendous amount of information about this one. This was one that was nominated while we were interviewing some people at the Catholic Multicultural Center. And Antonio suggested this, but pointed out that the building was the first Latino grocery in Madison. It's now a Thai restaurant, which is kind of interesting. It's also like three block like a block and a half from my house, so
Where is it?
It's on Fair Oaks Avenue, at the corner of Fair Oaks and Thorpe Street.
Fair Oaks? Oh, I know that.
This is doll. Picture of it on the EHI link, if you look at it, just from what it was. The link
So it it grocery was store for many years.
Yeah.
I can bring that up here.
Do you know when it became a a Mexican grocery? Yeah.
I believe it was in the early 1990s. Mhmm. It became a Latino grocery. This was when it was first.
And it was only the first?
First Latino grocery is what we say. Now, as I I don't have a lot of information on this, and I haven't been able to fact check a lot of it. We did find I did find the obituary for Banuelos. Maria de I talked a little bit about when the store opened up. But that's La Mexicana grocery store is what it was called. I remember it when it was a Really? They had great tamales. Wow. It's great.
They go
there every Sunday. But that's that's like I said, we don't have a tremendous amount of information about it other than what, you know, what I was able to to find out. Some of those people are still around, so it's possible we could interview Yeah. Some of them and find out more.
I I do think we might need to do a little more research to nail some of this down, especially if we're gonna do a marker or interpretive plaque. But if indeed it is the first, I would give it a five.
I would give it a four and then a little asterisk of find out more. K.
I I concur with that.
Four. Tim? Four. K.
Okay. Lake Mendota dugout canoes. So we're talking about where they've been discovered, which is more
Yeah. We I did get an email from Amy Roseborough, who, if folks don't know, is the state archaeologist. Yeah. And she had suggested for all of the underwater resources, there's three proposals that are actually underwater, Partly to protect them from, you know, vandalism or looting, she suggested that we find somewhere on the shore, which would be more practical to put a marker anyway, rather than the I kind
of assumed it, but Like
a buoy somewhere. Yeah. Right?
No. No.
I was So what I you know, with that commentary, what this is actually reflecting is this is a there's a Shortwood Hills Park here, which is near the location where the but not exactly on where the those canoes have been discovered.
There have been multiple canoes found.
Yeah. It's too bad Bill's not here, but I I think at our last meeting, said there's over 11 canoes that were found in that area.
That's an amazing Mhmm. Story.
And this this is Tim. I recently read that although the first one was dated at about 15 1,400 years old, the more recent discoveries go back many more thousands of years than that.
Yeah. 4,500, I think, is the the current record, but they keep breaking them. Every time they go down there, they find something older. Right. Sonar. The last one they did was sonar.
So Yeah. I I believe this has more than just local significance. This is a a national archaeological site. I I would give it a five.
I would too.
I'm gonna be a problem again because I feel like this story is gonna be very well told by the Wisconsin Historical Society when you can see the actual canoe in the museum. Mhmm.
I doubt you'll see them put up a marker there, but
No. That's true.
Yeah. They could. It would be totally eligible for a state marker, but
See, now we're getting hung up on the is it worth it, or does it need a marker? You know?
So let yeah. Let's try to stick on significance for now.
Okay. Five.
Five. K.
Okay. What's next? Lost my place here. Oh, Lathropaul. Jason Tisch, women.
This one I know is on the National Register.
Yeah.
And I think it was the first dance program in the nation. Could be. Women's dance program was there.
I think the School of Dance is still there.
Yeah.
And college women in built as a gymnasium, so college women in sports. Yes. First dance performance group, Orcesis? Kesis?
Five for me.
I'll give it a five.
I'll give it a five, Tim.
I will give it a five.
K. Great. Lucia Nunez. Andrea Teresa. Wisconsin Latinx history. Oh, it's on the East Side.
There it is.
Do you have any more background on this?
I mean, Lucia Nunez was an activist. She was the director of Centro Hispano. She was in the affirmative action office of the city of Madison. She insisted in the relocation of Cuban immigrants at Fort McCoy. And this was submitted to us by Andrea Teresa Arenas of the Wisconsin Latinx History Collective. There's a couple other submittals that they including the Cardinal bar, I think, and some others that they suggested to us. She was Chia Nunez was certainly was very active in city politics for a number of years until her death. I think just the last couple of years.
Really? Yeah. I will give it a five.
I will too.
I really like these under told stories.
Tim says five.
Anyone want to any words on Monona Bay barge shipwreck, whether or not it meets the criteria for our project? Or can we move on? Questions? Neighborhood House, African Americans, Italians.
So this was submitted by Neighborhood House itself, by the director of Neighborhood House. This was Madison's first community center. It's original, it's moved a couple times. This is the site of where it's been since 1965. It was previously on Mound Street. It started in 1916. Wow. So this was an area, a time when there's a lot of immigration and very high African American population in this neighborhood, and this was established as a community center to serve that population.
I would give it a five.
Would two.
Five from Tim?
Yes. Well, Mount Street is at that's off of Regent in that area. Yeah. I wonder if it ties into some of the history of people being relocated.
English? Mhmm. It does.
So, I mean, it has So longer history. I mean I mean
I mean, that would have been around the right time frame. Around the mid sixties was when a lot of that renewal took place, I think, in this
It was established. Sounds like the center was established at the Well before that, and
then Established. So it may have been moved as part of that urban renewal project.
So that seems to me when when if we do some sort of mark for that, somehow that part of the story is tied in.
Mhmm. Yeah. The whole Greenbush story.
Good point. Yeah. It would be interesting to know. I'm sure somebody's done this. Actually, the Madison Trust did a good Greenbush tour that might talk about whether or not this building or this site was a trade off in any of
the Mhmm.
Relocations and teardowns. Mhmm. We need a little bit more info on that.
But And would the market be more appropriate there or the original location?
Oh. Yeah.
So that's
I'm not sure
if this
plays into it, but Mountain Street is
a couple blocks south of this site, so it's kind of a little bit more out of the Greenbush neighborhood or the Regent part of it anyway.
But by the way, let me introduce Kurt. Kurt is, one of my, colleagues, in the department, and he's picking up, some of the work that I'm gonna be leaving when I retire. We were hoping to have, my replacement on board, but and be able to introduce them at this meeting, but they're still going through they I think they've selected a candidate, but they're still waiting for an acceptance at this point. But, in the meantime, Kurt is picking up, some of that work in the interim.
Very good. He's your understudy.
Yes.
Hopefully, it will be
a quick transition, and we'll seamlessly move on to the next person.
Okay. So I have four fives for neighborhood house.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Yep. K. And school. Again, Wisconsin Latinx history. I know it moved recently. So is it being nominated in its current location?
Or I think it's in the same location as so has been, as far as I know. I don't let me find it here.
It used to be in Monona, and then Is recently that right?
School, and now
it's in
the Frank Ellis School. Right?
Frank Ellis.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah. This is the information we have about it.
But it was probably somewhere before that. Right? So Probably.
So. It was nominated for the site in Monona.
That's correct.
Okay. Which is still owned by the school district and has been leased out to the Monona Parks Department. They use it for after school day care and other recreational programs. But it used to be the Maywood School. It was elementary school for the city of Monona.
It was something before that too. So Oh, yeah. I mean, it had to have been somewhere before it was Maywood. It wasn't just created when they took over Maywood. Right? It came from
I'm saying it was a school for the city of Building?
Well, I'm saying Neustromundo was somewhere before they took over Maywood.
So Probably. I don't know that, but probably.
If we this is gonna be another one of our where does the marker go.
Right.
Right? And how many locations can we and, you know, and we can tell the location Yeah.
To tell the story. Right. But I I'll give it a four.
This is Tim. I give it a three.
Let me give it a five.
I mean, what year was the school what year was the school established?
You know? Let me see.
Oh, there's Lucia Nunez again.
Yeah. I think I need to recorrect some of that. Yes. No. That's right. Yeah. She was involved in that. I I it it's it's happened since the time I lived in Madison. So I believe it was in the nineties, late nineties, perhaps.
That sounds right.
We were right around 2,000 even when it opened.
Three for me. Okay.
K. Any comments on Holland Park barge shipwreck? Anyone wanna any questions about that before we move on? Okay. Richard Davis home. This was something I nominated.
You got two nominations for this one as well. You got two?
Yes. Okay.
It's on the West Side. Right?
It's on West Shore Drive, I think, or South Shore Drive?
Here we let's see.
And Oh, yeah.
It's here we go.
You got that? Yep. Okay. So Richard Davis was a world famous bass player. Played on a lot of the famous themes of rock music in the '70s, like Van Morrison and dozens others.
He came and taught at the university. And while he lived in that house, he had an institute where he worked with people who took classes with him about racism. And I was lucky enough to do that with him before he passed away. So that is actually where he conducted those institute sessions. So I think he's a well loved and well remembered individual, very involved with the university and Madison.
He always said he had two careers, one as a musician and one as a black man, and felt that his life was dedicated to fighting racism as much as it was making music. So that's why I nominated the house. Do have a score?
Do you have a score? Five.
Five.
Given that context, five.
Yeah. I remember playing seeing him play. This is Tim. Five. K.
Robert Valentine Farm.
This is one that I submitted. I was going through some research and reading the I'm trying to remember the name of the book, but it was a book about African Americans in the Union Army in the Civil War. And two people identified were John Jay and Julius Valentine, who were Robert Valentine's sons. Though Robert Valentine was one of the first African American settlers in Dane County. And I went found the location by going back through the register of deeds because the book identified it as a spot in the town of Rutland.
And so looking I did a search, found the original deed from 1852. And identified the The site is so the the farm itself is in private hands, but it is adjacent to the Rutland Center Cemetery. And so here's, this is a picture here of, from the cemetery, so that's one of the cemetery buildings, and then the cornfield you see in the background is the, was the original farm. We went through the cemetery to see if any of the Valentines were buried there, and they were not. So we couldn't find any of their grave sites there.
So Make Way for Liberty was the name of the book. And this is probably one of the earliest African American families, particularly outside of the city of Madison in the Dane County area.
It's just an amazing story. You don't think of the original settlers, any of them being black. Mhmm.
Well, this was around the same time that Eston Hemings, Jefferson, came. Eighteen fifties? Yeah. Right around the same time period. So they have been a I similar
mean, I'm assuming that you're saying that this family owned land.
They did. Yeah. So the land that the the deed that created the Rutland Cemetery and the deed that created the Ballantyne property were executed on the same at the same time. They're so the previous landowner sold both of them. Previous landowner was probably, in that time period, was probably someone who was one of the original patents from the federal government at that point. Wow. Valentine may have been the second non indigenous owner of that parcel.
Yeah. Well, I was very excited about this, and I would definitely give it a five.
Yeah. Same. Five for Tim.
Same here.
Thank you for your research.
Yay. Mhmm. So there's a book about this.
Make Way for Liberty by Knell. It's Wisconsin State Historical Society Press. There's some information in the in the
And he was a Civil War veteran?
His sons were. Sons. Both of his sons. Okay.
Sabin's viewpoint. I didn't feel like this really met our criteria. One, because it's fairly new, but it was built in honor of individual, but not in and of itself historic. So that's why I didn't include it in the highlighting. Any any comment on that? I agree, Tim. No. And here we are back at Saint Francis House. Did we just did we vote on that? Yeah.
You we we put scores on that one already.
Smart Studios. Again, I think it's important, it's historic, but I don't know if it would meet our criteria.
Yeah, I'd say that should be just a Madison landmark.
It should be.
If anybody wrote those nominations anymore. Hello, Is
Heather still on the line?
Let me see.
Heather's still here? Yep. Hang on. Let me
Not her fault. Oh, really? Hi, Heather. You should be able to talk now.
Hi. I I agree. I think that absolutely should be a landmark. I have talked with the property owners, and told them that I would very enthusiastically support that if they would like to pursue it. So far, they have not taken me up on that offer.
Okay.
Yeah. She just needs more writers.
Yeah. That's where the Madison Trust is supposed to come in. Right?
Well, the Madison Trust oh, well, let me put in a good word for the Madison They are moving forward on nominations. They were doing the survey work and getting the information out there, and they are moving forward with nominations. So we just wrapped up one this past year for the Catherine Klarenbach house, and we've got one in the queue that hopefully we will be able to see coming up in the next, I don't know, couple of months. So be on the lookout. They're
doing good stuff.
Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Great. But so I feel comfortable in skipping this one. If others have any comment, let me know. Mhmm. UW Women's Studies program. Is what can you brief us a little bit on that?
Sure. Hang on a second. Let me find it here. So this was submitted to us by Jason Tisch, and this was the original location in the 1970s when it was clear that women's movement was making significant progress in shifting American culture. The region's made a system wide policy in 1974 that all UW institutions instituted women's studies program.
This was a house at 209 Brook Street, and it was the home of the UW Women's Studies program from 1975 until 1992. There was some construction here, but it's apparently it's now the Journal of Chemical Education. Mhmm. Interesting location. So at least that's what the sign on the door says.
Mhmm. I will give it a 4.
This is Tim. I'll say 3.
Okay. Moving on. Vandenberg Heights, Capehart Housing, city of Sun Prairie.
So this one comes to us from an employee of the city of Sun Prairie. I believe they're in the planning department.
Becky Bins.
Yeah. And this is an interesting story, I think. It's This was housing that was created by the US government under the K Part Act, specifically to house African American airmen who were stationed at Truax Field. Those airmen, like other African American families at the time, were having difficulty finding housing because of restrictive covenants in the area. So this was a federal act that allowed the US government to purchase land and actually build housing for these people.
It's properties that are they're owned. And I'll show you you can see these are like sort of long, duplex homes, but the land underneath it is still owned by the city of Sun Prairie.
Yeah, actually if you pull up the last of the pictures, there's a
This one?
That one, yeah.
This is the plat of the Yeah. This is a replat that was done in the 1990s, but that's the the original division. But so the land underneath it is still publicly owned, which reduces the housing costs. But also because they're homed, it's been able to be passed on from generation to generation, and this area is still a very predominantly African American neighborhood to this day.
That's an interesting story.
Mhmm.
I will give it a five.
Me too. Five.
Five from two.
And the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Again, I felt it didn't quite meet our criteria. But if others disagree What's that?
I agree.
I agree.
I do too.
Alright. Washington hotel LGBTQ plus community. That's gone, but the memories continue.
Let me find that here. Hang on a second. Here it is. Yeah, there's a plaque of sorts there. Doesn't really say much, just has a picture of the original building on the side of it, and then that's about it. But yeah, this was another one that I think we got two nominations for.
Wow.
Think of this one a five.
I'll give it a five, too.
I will too. Do you see what the historic name is?
What?
The historic name of it? Hotel Trump.
Oh. T r u m p f. Oh, be careful.
Careful. I know. Tim?
This is Tim. I remember going there. If you went on one floor, it was a heterosexual dance band, and you could take a date there. And then if you went on another floor, that was where the gay bar was.
Different date. You could still take a date there.
Sure. Yep. Yep. You could. Alright. I'd give it a five.
Right.
Everyone vote on that? Okay. So the last one, Champion Red Oak. Quite old, I might say.
Yeah. Three fifty years old. Wow. It is the largest red oak in the state of Wisconsin. So, but for a frame of reference, it started growing around the same time that Champlain sailed past on the Wisconsin River.
Yeah. It's worth a marker, but I don't think it meets the criteria of our program today.
Yeah.
Okay. Wow. Well, we'll let Brian compute all that, give us some numbers at some point. Should we move on to deciding about the design of these markers?
Maybe I'm going to need to cut out in a couple minutes while that costs you quorum quorum.
It probably will.
So I'm
having some more time to think about it anyway based on what we've found, because the design, I think, has a lot to do with how much we need to say. And we've come up with a variety of different things to say.
So our next meeting is in May? February. February. Next And month, you will not be here, but someone will.
Yeah. I I may be here, but not in an official capacity. Okay. Might be one of those disembodied voices lurking on Zoom.
Okay. Well, you can help us with some continuity issues. But the two things we have left is the design issue and setting a public meeting issue.
Public hearing date, yes.
Public hearing. So should we just continue that February?
Sure. Unless you want to have the I mean, unless you want to have the hearing date on the February 11 meeting Ah. Which certainly would be your option. You've you've selected out of the 42, we've got a number that we've kicked out that we've that you said are not applicable to the project. Right.
So, you know, I think we're at let me see here. 1234, 567891011121314151617181920212223, 24, 25, 26, 27, some of which Rick, you you submitted, you know, one that I submitted that have we've already sort of talked about. So, you know, they probably maybe 15 or so that would people might want to present and and talk about. We also had Janet Murphy speak here today about some of those. But I think the idea would be to give, you know, people who nominated a site an opportunity to speak to it and talk about why they think it's important for others, you know, who may have an interest also to speak on, you know, any of those those sites.
So, certainly could, you know, do that and make that the public hearing date with those ones that meet the criteria or if you wanted to try and narrow it down a little further, you know, take that up at the February 11 meeting and schedule the public hearing further out.
What's the feeling of the committee? Do you want to combine it with February 11, or should we continue to work on this before we go to a public hearing?
At first, I was gonna say I didn't feel like we're quite ready for prime time yet, but I think also hearing from people before we decide what the markers look like might be helpful. Because then, like I said, it informs how much information we want to have on each one. And maybe you know, I mean, in this exercise tonight, which wasn't quite what I was expecting, we sort of had to scrap together some information. And maybe before we move even farther, it would be helpful to have the input from the other folks, from the nominee tours.
So you wanna have the public hearing on the eleventh?
Yes. But I want to make sure we know exactly what we're doing with that information.
With we get from the public hearing.
Yeah.
And I want them to know why they're coming and what
I guess for me, I'm just wondering, are we ready to invite the public? Do we have what we want?
That goes back to my original thought.
Yeah. I feel like I wanna work on this a little bit more before we schedule a meeting.
But what more inform what information are we asking for from them then? Would they be tiebreakers? Are they, you know, are they just filling out more information for us to then take to the next step?
Well, I think we're going to sift through what we've decided. We're going to have a ranking for all these markers, and then we can kind of say, Here's our shortlist that we're working from right now. I don't know if we're ready to present that, but here are the ones that ranked twenty, twenty five, had a score of four or five. And these are the ones the committee is looking at proposing for additional work.
One question I guess I would have is are there is there testimony that could be presented that might change your ranking in terms of some Good. Sure. On any of these?
And Can we have that list, though, of the rankings? Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, that's what we'll put out there for people to comment on.
I think the list should be maybe this is goes without saying narrowed to the what meet our criteria the minimum criteria of, you know
Right. Yep.
Serving what I just that's what I just ran down. So there you know, there's roughly 20 or so that Okay. This commission has identified as meeting their criteria. Right. Some of those, you know, Rick nominated. One of them I or two of them I nominated. So you're probably looking at you know, if you held a public hearing and everything else, you're probably looking at, you know, 15 people or 15 items that people would comment on. I mean, they could comment on anything. Right? And it wouldn't just have to be nominators. It could be the general public or other people
who who didn't make the list can comment on things done on the agenda.
Right. That's true. Okay.
So we'll have a short list
Yeah.
Of 15 or so.
Yeah. Mhmm.
And that's what we'll put out there as part of the for comment primarily. People can comment on whatever they want, but this is what we're asking for comment on. Is that good?
That's commission's pleasure.
Does that work for people?
I guess what we're looking for out of a public hearing is is to be informed. You know? I mean, we we need to prioritize K. What, five or six sites. And so part of it is, you know, we did a ranking tonight by some of what input we get from the public. We may wanna change some of those rankings, but also just help us identify what are those top tier ones. Right?
Because they're top tier, you
mean The the high priority ones that, you know, we can afford to that were budgeted to the five or six that we can actually
So the the other thing that that is going to inform some of that discussion, I think, is one of the items that you wanted to postpone, if ever, which is The design and The design and the cost, because that's a huge there's a huge variance in that. Yep. You know, basically on an order of magnitude.
One affects the other.
In terms of, you know, if you're going with the brass plaques, they're very expensive. You know, approximately $3,000 or or so a piece. If you're going with, you know, a more informational sign, some of those could be in the $300 range. So depending on the costs, you could do more or fewer, depending on what those designs are.
The 5 or 6 was based on an idea of it being about 6,000. That's correct, yes.
I will mention though, with the interpretive plaques, there's a lot of design work involved.
So,
they are available to do design work, but I think there'd be a cost there. Yep. So, yeah.
So in essence, the public hearing just allows us to gather more information to make our final decision on the top, however many we can afford.
Help us in the ranking.
Mean, from a planning perspective, that's what public hearings are for, is to collect information that you otherwise wouldn't have to help you render a decision.
Help us with the ranking and prioritization of which markers to go forward with.
Yeah. So as long as it's clear to those who are invited
Yeah.
Are they invited, or do they just have
to run across this? Yes.
We'll invite them. Okay.
So all the nominators will be invited. Yes. And when we talk more about this on ward radio, we'll let them know this is something that they can become part of too.
Rick and I are gonna be interviewed on Thursday on a public affair by Alan Ruff
Oh, cool.
Who wrote the 2,000 edition of the history of Dane County.
He was one of our coauthors, and I have never met him. We sell his book.
I just wanna say for the record, on underrepresented communities, the LGBTQIA community came out ahead with about five. Women, three. Indigenous, three. African American, three. Latino, four. I was just keeping track because
That's interesting.
Yeah. And then Japanese American.
And Japanese American one. Yeah. And then Islamic one. Yeah. So there's there's a couple outliers too, but I was just you know? And and this is loose. I I miss some, but because there's some overlap on some of them too. But just wanted to make sure we were getting as many communities as we could.
Right. Great. K. So are we ready to So are
we holding public, are we holding a public hearing on February 11?
I believe so.
Yeah.
Okay. I think that's all you need to do. I wanna ask for a public comment. Let me see if I don't know if Heather's still here.
Tim isn't there, and Oh, Tim's here. Tim is here. Yep.
Heather, was there anything that you wanted to add at this point?
She's still there?
Yep. So it'd be under public comment for things not on the agenda?
Yes. Ah, sorry.
Lot A of talk. Heather, you should be able to speak now.
I actually have to click on mute. There we go. I wanna say thank you so much for everything that this group is doing. Brian and I have met several times talking through your program. I do wanna bring up that the city of Madison also has a historic markers program that is we're going to be pulling from the underrepresented communities historic resources survey.
And I think a lot of the signage some of the projects that you're talking about are overlapping with the first set of five signs that we're talking about doing. I think this is a great opportunity for collaboration, and there's a lot of places that you are looking that we're not looking. And I think for the wider area, not just within the city itself, but for the wider area, I think that's really wonderful.
Thank you.
I would like that information to I would like to know that, you know, because like I said, it necessarily help a place to have more than one plaque as long as the plaque says everything we want it to say. So I appreciate you bringing that up, Heather, and I think that would help inform our decision on what we're you know, we might still rank a thing high, but we might not deem it plaque worthy if it's already under consideration from another entity.
And I think that makes a lot of sense. Yep. Absolutely. I fully agree.
So might we add a column to our sheet
Duplicate effort.
In Brian's last days, or or if there's another way to do it, just Sure. You know, which was sort of like my question about the National Register and the Madison Landmarks and the, you know, and let's make sure something gets noticed. It doesn't necessarily matter. It's all about the education.
Yep. We can certainly do that.
Good idea. Thanks. Thank you, Heather. I appreciate your sitting through this long meeting.
No. No. Absolutely. Thank you again for what you're doing.
Alright. I'm more than willing to collaborate. I like that idea. So we'll try and stay in touch.
Sounds good. Thank you.
Thank you. Such other business is allowed by law. I think we're ready to adjourn. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.
Aye. Need to record somebody else making a motion. Okay. Jim
moves. Moves.
So moves.
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.