Madison, WI news and local guide

In 1829 James Duane Doty, a former federal judge, bought 1,261 acres of swamp and forest on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona for $1,500, planning a city. When the legislature of the new Wisconsin Territory met at Belmont in 1836 to choose a permanent capital, Doty lobbied hard, handing out buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and offering choice lots at discount prices to undecided members. He named the city for James Madison, who had died on June 28, 1836, and named its streets for the other 38 signers of the Constitution. Though the city existed only on paper, the legislature chose it as the capital on November 28, 1836, mainly because it lay halfway between Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien and between the lead-mining region and Green Bay. The cornerstone of the first Capitol was laid in 1837, and the legislature first met there in 1838. The plat was registered on October 9, 1839, and Madison was incorporated as a village in 1846 with 626 people. It stayed the capital when Wisconsin became a state in 1848. The state constitution called for a university at or near the seat of government, and the University of Wisconsin was created on July 26, 1848. Its first main building, University Hall, now Bascom Hall, was finished in 1859, facing the Capitol. Sources Wikipedia: Madison, Wisconsin