1920 Madison Wisconsin Automobile Blue Book

The Madison Isthmus is an

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmu ...

where the majority of

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

is situated, between

Lake Mendota Lake Mendota is a freshwater eutrophic lake that is the northernmost and largest of the four lakes in Madison, Wisconsin. The lake borders Madison on the north, east, and south, Middleton on the west, Shorewood Hills on the southwest, Maple Blu ...

and

Lake Monona Lake Monona is a freshwater drainage lake in Dane County, Wisconsin, surrounded on three sides by the city of Madison, Wisconsin, and on the south east side by the city of Monona, Wisconsin. It is the second-largest of a chain of four lakes along ...

. It is located between Madison's northeast side to the east and the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

campus to the west.

History

After visiting the area in 1829, land speculator and judge

James Duane Doty James Duane Doty (November 5, 1799 – June 13, 1865) was a land speculator and politician in the United States who played an important role in the development of Wisconsin and Utah Territory. Early life and legal career A descendant of ''Mayflo ...

purchased of land on the isthmus. By 1836 Doty had convinced the

Wisconsin Territory The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 3, 1836, until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin. Belmont was ...

legislature to relocate the capital to the site from its original location in Belmont. Construction of the Capitol began the following year, in 1837.

Physical characteristics

The southwestern portion of the Isthmus is home to the

Wisconsin State Capitol The Wisconsin State Capitol, located in Madison, Wisconsin, houses both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor. Completed in 1917, the building is the fifth to serve as the Wi ...

, State Street, and Madison's main business and financial districts. The

Yahara River The Yahara River is a tributary of the Rock River in southern Wisconsin. It is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 (including the distance across inte ...

crosses the isthmus at its northeastern end, connecting Lake Mendota to Lake Monona. The

street grid In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...

within the isthmus is laid out in a southwest-to-northeast pattern. Three main

arterial roads An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roa ...

connect east and west Madison along the Isthmus: U.S. Highway 151 (US 151, East Washington Avenue), East Johnson Street, and East Gorham Street. The Williamson (Willy) Street business district is also located completely on the isthmus. Madison is one of only two major U.S. cities built on an isthmus, the other being

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

References

External links

* {{coord, 43, 05, 01, N, 89, 22, 18, W, display=title Isthmuses of the United States Landforms of Dane County, Wisconsin

History

Physical characteristics

See also

References

External links