Nakoma Historic District

About this property

The Nakoma Historic District is a historic neighborhood on the southwest side of Madison, Wisconsin near the Nakoma Country Club, including contributing houses built from 1915 to 1946. In 1998 the large district was added to the National Register of Historic Places, primarily for having "the finest collection of Period Revival style buildings" in Madison. Native Americans long lived around the four lakes region, including near Lake Wingra just east of this district. The settlement of Madison began in the 1830s with the early town taking shape on the isthmus around the capitol. Two miles to the southwest, the land that would eventually become the Nakoma district developed into farms in those early years. By 1854 the Madison-Monroe road led through these farms, heading toward Wisconsin's lead-mining region. Charles Morgan and James Gorham built a stagecoach stop there now called the Old Spring Tavern. Two years later, in 1856, a rural school was built where the Thoreau School now stands. The area remained more or less rural like this until the 1910s. By this time the city was growing this way, with University Heights, Wingra Park, and other subdivisions. Some of these were served by streetcar lines which transported workers to the downtown each day. In 1914 and 1915 the Madison Realty Company bought farmlands along Verona Road and began plans to develop them into the subdivision that would be Nakoma. Chicago landscape gardener Ossian Cole Simonds and Leonard S. Smith laid out the general plan for the subdivision. It was later described by one of its promoters like this: The rolling landscape facing south and east, with an unobstructed view of Lake Wingra, the Capitol, the University, and the city, seemed an ideal location for a large community of homes. Prov. L.S. Smith of the University designed and laid out the plat. The lots are large and the streets are broad and inviting as they follow the sweeping curves at the base of the hills. The general result was to leave the land as nature made it, unmarred by the cutting through of streets, so common in the conventional city plat. Some buyers needed convincing to move out of the city, and Madison Realty met that challenge. Automobiles were becoming more common, but not everyone had them. Instead of an expensive streetcar line, the developer provided a private bus service to help people commute into the city. The developer provided water, gas, electricity and sidewalks. Property taxes were promoted as lower than in the city. The suburb was promoted as family friendly, prohibiting saloons, and replacing the old grade school with a new Prairie School-styled building. The developer even paid for a neighborhood magazine called the Nakoma Tomahawk. "Nakoma" was said to be a Chippewa word meaning "I do as I promise."

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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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