Висконсин-Мэдисон университетінің тарихи төңірегі: Баском Хилл

Bascom Hill is the iconic main quadrangle that forms the historic core of the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. It is located on the opposite end of State Street from the Wisconsin State Capitol, and is named after John Bascom, former president of the University of Wisconsin. The hill is crowned by Bascom Hall, the main administration building for the campus. Near the main entrance to Bascom Hall sits a statue of President Abraham Lincoln. The first university building, North Hall, was constructed on Bascom Hill in 1851 and is still in use by the Department of Political Science. The second building, South Hall, was built in 1855 and is now used by the administration of the University of Wisconsin College of Letters and Science. In 1974 the area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Bascom Hill Historic District. In addition to the main quadrangle, the district includes historic buildings ranging from the Red Gym to the Wisconsin Historical Society building to the Carillon Tower. The NRHP nomination considers the district "the most historic cluster of institutional buildings in Wisconsin."

Prior to white settlement around 1837, the area that would become Madison was quiet woods and savannahs, swamps and lakes. Woodland people built effigy mounds like the water spirit mound near Washburn Observatory, and their probable descendants the Ho Chunk called the place Ta ko per ah, meaning "land of the four lakes." On the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona were two hills, drumlins formed about 18,000 years ago by the last glacier. When Madison was selected as Wisconsin Territory's capital in 1836, the top of the eastern hill was reserved for the territorial capitol building, and the state capitol stands there today. The other hill a mile to the west came to be called optimistically "College Hill" around 1838, years before there was any college. The location of Wisconsin's capital had been contentious, and the lead promoter of Madison, Judge James Doty, had gained allies and secured their ongoing motivation by selling them wild parcels around the proposed city. One of those parcels was 160 acres on Bascom Hill which was sold to New York Congressman Aaron Vanderpoel in 1838 for $1.25 an acre. In 1848 when the new State of Wisconsin created the university, the state bought the land from Vanderpoel for $15 an acre. In 1966 the building by itself was named a National Historic Landmark. In those early years, the university was not well funded. Each new building required approval of funds from the Wisconsin legislature, and in its eagerness to educate and to show that the new state of Wisconsin was on a par with Michigan, the university often overextended itself. "The $20,000 cost of [South Hall] so crippled the University at the time that the purchase of books and apparatus had to be temporarily discontinued and the curriculum limited." In the early years the curriculum of the university focused on geography, English grammar, Latin and Greek. That curriculum shifted to more practical subjects as years passed. Particularly with the Morrill Act of 1862, the UW began offering instruction in "the agricultural and mechanical arts." In 1884 South Hall became home to the Department of Agriculture and was renamed Agriculture Hall. In 1890 in this building, Stephen Babcock developed the Babcock test for milk fat content. Tinsley's own biographer observed that it was "a handsome and dignified if somewhat pompous, edifice." It was built from 1857 to 1859, and was the first UW building used entirely for instruction. Like South Hall, the building of Bascom left the university financially stressed for years. In early years Bascom Hall was called Main Hall, University Hall, and Old Main. In 1894 the original semi circular portico was replaced with the current Jeffersonian portico and the dome was enlarged. In 1920 the building's name was changed to Bascom Hall to honor the former UW president. which is not included in the Bascom Hill Historic District.

By the 1870s Main Hall (now Bascom) was jam packed with classrooms, labs and students. More instructional space was needed. Henry C. Koch of Milwaukee designed a four story U shaped building clad in Madison sandstone and styled Italianate, located where the new Science Hall now stands. It housed labs and shops in the first floor/basement, chemistry and physics on the second floor, civil engineering and geology on the third, and natural history on the fourth, with an art gallery at the front. It even had flush toilets. After only seven years of use, a fire started in December 1884, possibly in a forge room, and fire suppression plans failed. The whole building burned.

While the 1877 Science Hall still existed, leaders felt the university's greatest need was a space large enough for the whole student body to assemble. The university also needed a better place for a library, and again had some funds to work with. University President Bascom engaged Madison architect David R. Jones, who designed a dramatic building with a large square corner clock tower, with walls of Madison sandstone (quarried at what is now Hoyt Park) trimmed with darker Superior brownstone, with corner buttresses and pinnacles, and with gently pointed windows filled with stained glass created by George A. Misch of Chicago. The general style is Gothic Revival (emphasis on the vertical), and the building looks like a church without the Christian iconography. The building was initially called Assembly Hall, and the auditorium was used for "lectures, plays, recitals, operas, and concerts." But after some confusion between "Assembly Hall" and the "Assembly chamber" one mile away, the name was changed to Library Hall. The hall's "good acoustics and pleasant setting made it ideal for the frequent literary society debates and free lectures series, both well attended by Madison residents." The building is symmetric with a massive 5 story tower centered over the main entrance a castle crossed with a shoe factory. All construction bids came in higher than the regents wanted, so they appointed Allan Conover, one of the university's own professors of civil engineering, as general contractor. Professor Conover changed the design to reduce risk of another fire, replacing Koch's "slow burning" wood framework and load bearing walls with a steel skeleton and hollow clay tile. The steel in particular was progressive, as Science Hall was only the second building in the U. S. with a steel framework. The building ended up costing $285,000, far above the initial estimates, and requests for more funds prompted an uproar and legislative hearings, but the fireproofing changes were hard to argue with, and it was determined that the initial estimates had been unrealistic. Nationally prominent geologist Charles Van Hise worked in Science Hall. He was "the first in the nation to apply microscopic lithology to an extensive study of crystalline rocks, and to use those results in the formulation of geologic principles." Van Hise was also an early champion of conservation of natural resources. Other notable scientists worked in the building, but it was particularly for the association with Van Hise's work on geology that Science Hall was named a National Historic Landmark in 1994. and they moved the furnaces to this building. It generated steam, which was piped through tunnels to the new Science Hall, and later to the 1892 law building and other buildings. The heating plant was designed by H. C. Koch, who also designed both Science Halls. He covered it in cut stone, with segmental arches over many openings, and one chimney. In the 1890s it was extended 70 feet to the south with a second chimney. The university continued to grow, and in 1908 built a new central heating plant south of University Ave.

With the old heating plant free, the new Mining Engineering department moved in, remodeling the building to make assaying labs and ore dressing rooms. Mining stayed in the building until about 1931. The building is now called Radio Hall because the university's pioneering radio station WHA moved in from Sterling Hall in 1934 and operated here until 1972, when it moved to Vilas Hall. The new building is not included in the NRHP's Bascom Hill Historic District.

The Red Gym isn't on Bascom Hill, but it is a contributing property to the Bascom Hill Historic District, and the NRHP nomination considers it "perhaps the most significant historical site in the District." Meanwhile, some in the state legislature wanted to construct an armory in Madison to be ready in case of civil disturbances like the Haymarket Riot in Chicago less than ten years earlier. Allan Conover and Lew Porter designed a fortress like structure with turrets and towers with corbels and battlements, in red brick trimmed with sandstone. The first floor initially held the commandant's office, the artillery drill room, bowling alleys and a swimming pool. The second held a large drill hall/basketball court/assembly hall with a 43 foot ceiling. The third held the gymnasium, with a baseball cage, gymnastics equipment, rowing machines, two 160 foot rifle ranges, and a 440 yard track. Over the years the assembly hall hosted William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Eugene Debs, and Upton Sinclair,

The university's library had a good home in Assembly/Library Hall when it was built in 1879, but by the 1890s the library's books had overflowed into basements around campus. Meanwhile, the State Historical Society's collection much of it irreplaceable was jammed into the capitol building where it was vulnerable to fire. From 1895 to 1899 the state legislature approved funds for a shared building to solve both problems. Milwaukee architects Ferry & Clas designed the new building in Neoclassical style, with a broad Ionic colonnaded portico, and exterior of Bedford limestone. Inside are mosaic tile floors, marble staircases, and a large reading room. The building's footprint was U shaped, with the historical society's stacks in the south end and the university's stacks in the north. In 1952 the university's library moved to the new Memorial Library building across the square and the Historical Society expanded to take over the entire building.

Growing science programs had driven Engineering to move to its own building in 1901, and they continued to grow. In 1905 the Dean of L&S Edward Birge recommended a new Biology building to relieve crowding in Science Hall. State architect Arthur Peabody and Jarvis Hunt of Chicago designed a 5 story Neoclassical styled structure behind Bascom and South Hall. It was completed in 1912, and initially called the Botany building. Wisconsin Alumni Magazine described entering from the Bascom mall side and seeing: biological specimens of general interest which fills most of the ground floor of the main building. Passing straight through the museum doors on both sides open into the auditorium, which seats about four hundred. There are two floors below this, the basement, which contained the department of plant physiology, and the sub basement containing labs and work rooms which opened directly into the greenhouses to the south of the auditorium. Staircases from the museum give access to the upper floors, which housed research labs, chart and dark rooms, a herbarium, offices, lecture rooms, a library and Prof. Owen's butterfly collection. In 1950 the building was renamed Birge Hall a week after Edward Birge died. Wings were added in 1956 and 1980. The lowest construction bid came from Jacob Pfeffer of Duluth, which led to trouble because he operated an open shop. In 1927 union workers left work and picketed in protest of the non union workers. Police didn't intervene and things deteriorated until on May 20 a group of 200 union supporters attacked Pfeffer's workers, beating them and throwing some in the lake. Bones were broken and one man lost an eye. After more violence, public opinion shifted against the union and the courts and police stepped in. Peabody's daughter Charlotte designed the terrace facing Lake Mendota. The Wisconsin Union Theater wing was added in 1938, designed in Moderne style by Michael Hare and Paul Cret. Warren Laird and Paul Cret designed the 85 foot sandstone tower so that the balustrade echoes that on Bascom Hall. Inside is the carillon, an instrument where a keyboardist rings tuned bronze bells. At the dedication concert in 1936, carillonneur Ira Schroeder played On Wisconsin and Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, among other songs. An automated system rings bells on the hour, playing songs such as “Varsity” and “On, Wisconsin!”. On most summer Sundays a human carillonneur provides a free concert for the public.

Enrollment grew in the years after World War II. New buildings for the sciences were funded by federal money for science education and funds from WARF, but many humanities subjects like history and art were left scattered across older buildings like Bascom Hall. In 1959 the History Building Committee expressed their frustration: "The map situation in the department is deplorable We need a building." The university selected prominent Chicago architect Harry Weese to lead the design of a solution. Rather than the three towers (history, music and art) that had previously been considered and which would have visually blocked the old buildings on Bascom Hill from the city, Weese proposed a single lower structure at the foot of Bascom Hill, with landscaped green space around. As feedback came in, more space was needed, and the building grew to fill much of the green space. Costs had to be cut, finishes cheapened, and the inner courtyards filled with stone rather than green landscaping. somewhat ironic for a humanities building. The building still has problems with leaks, heating and acoustics, and is slated to be replaced around 2030.

Northwest of North Hall where John Muir lived, and running down the hill to Lake Mendota, remains a 7 acre tract of woods where Muir no doubt rambled in his free time. In 1959 the woods was involved in a controversy when the UW decided to take a bite out of it for the Sociology Anthropology Economics Building a controversy that roused protest from various quarters, including Aldo Leopold's widow and Frank Lloyd Wright, who wrote of the regents' plan: This determination to cut into the fine remaining forest for some expedient building is going to prove to subsequent generations that 'regentry' need be neither scholar nor gentleman The Social Sciences building went forward, but the uproar marked a turning point for university planners.