Jenifer-Spaight Historic District

About this property

The Jenifer-Spaight Historic District is a historic neighborhood a mile east of the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, including houses built as early as 1854. In 2004 the district was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The district includes 113 contributing objects and roughly covers Jenifer and Spaight streets (which both run from southwest to northeast) from Jenifer Street's intersection with Williamson Street (which generally runs parallel with the other two streets) on the southwest to Brearly Street (a cross street) on the northeast. Within the district are three properties that are also listed individually on the NRHP: the John George Ott House, the Timothy C. and Katherine McCarthy House, and the Hyer's Hotel. The neighborhood's streets and lots were mapped out in James Doty's original 1836 plat for the city of Madison. Most of Madison's initial construction took place near the capitol, but by the 1850s Leonard J. Farwell in particular was developing this area on the ridge along Lake Monona, and Williamson Street was a burgeoning business district serving the east side of the city and the country beyond. The arrival of the Chicago & North Western Railroad in 1864 and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul in 1869, and their depots just a block west of the district created more commerce, more travelers, and more opportunities for manufacturing and warehousing. In the 1880s three blocks of dealers in agricultural implements began to develop just north of Williamson St. All this growth was concentrated on the ridge along Lake Monona because the center of the isthmus was lowlands until the 1890s, when developers began filling that "Great Marsh." By this period, the neighborhoods near the capitol were getting crowded and some people began to look for less congested neighborhoods not far from the city center like this ridge along the lake. With the arrival of the automobile, people could live in more far-flung suburbs. In the 1920s the last open lots in the district were filled, and the structures in the neighborhood haven't changed much since the start of WWII. Governor Farwell's octagon house no longer exists, but was once the grand eminence of this neighborhood. Farwell was a developer of east Madison and Wisconsin Governor who had a large house built in 1854 - an octagon house 3-stories tall with stone walls, topped with a large cupola. The house stood around 929 Spaight St., with its grounds and outbuildings occupying all the area between Spaight, Breeley and Lake Monona. During the Civil War, the house was used as Harvey U.S. Army Hospital, and after the war as the Soldier's Orphan's Home. The grand structure was torn down in 1895 and the land subdivided for smaller houses. In 1908 a boulder with a plaque was installed to commemorate Farwell's grand house and the one-time hospital.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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