Sherman Avenue Historic District

About this property

The Sherman Avenue Historic District is a historic neighborhood along Lake Mendota on the east end of the isthmus in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, consisting mostly of middle class houses built from the mid 1890s to the late 1920s. In 1988 the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The area along Sherman Avenue was part of James Doty's original 1836 plat of Madison, but because much of the area was marshy, it developed later than other parts of Madison like the busy town center around the capitol. However, in 1850 Leonard Farwell straightened and dammed the Yahara River and built a saw and flour mill on a hill across the Yahara. Tibbets and Gordon built a brewery in the same area at the same time. In 1854 a house was built at what would become the corner of Brearly and Gorham Streets. When not a muddy mess, Sherman Avenue became a popular route for outings east along Lake Mendota to the brewery and to the scenic area that would become Maple Bluff. Otherwise this marshy area remained undeveloped until the 1890s. In the early 1890s Madison was growing, spreading out into suburbs. Lakefront lots were in demand, and several developers began filling the marsh along Sherman Avenue to make the lots viable for homes. The Willow Park Land Company dredged sand and rock from nearby Lake Mendota and deposited thousands of cubic feet per day on their Willow Park subdivision. Gay's Northside subdivision was also filled, and Lenzer's replat, and Park's subdivision. Between 1895 and 1900 fourteen homes were built in this new neighborhood. The first was at 1228 Sherman for John Erdall, an executive of the Willow Park company. Generally the houses on the lakeward side of Sherman were for middle class families and those away from the lake were for working class. Just to the east, starting around 1899, the Madison Parks and Pleasure Drive Association assembled the parcels that would become Tenney Park. Much of this land too was marshy and had to be filled. The nearby park made the neighborhood more attractive. Home construction in the subdivisions along Sherman Street continued in the 1920s. The area attracted a variety of residents, but the bigger homes tended to be for businessmen from downtown more than professionals. By the 1930s the neighborhood was full. In 1988 the district was listed on the NRHP as a relatively intact "turn-of-the-century working and middle-class neighborhood," with excellent examples of various architectural styles and some representative works from important Madison architects. The district was added to the State Register of Historic Places the following year.

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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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