WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 72, No. 3 • Spring, 1989 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NICHOLAS MULLER 111, Director Officers MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., President GERALD D. VISTE, Treasurer GEORGE H. MILLER, First Vice-President H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Secretary MRS. B. L. BERNHARDT, Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Individual membership (one person) is $25. Senior Citizen Individual membership is $20. Family membership is $30. Senior Citizen Family membership is $25. Supporting membership is f 100. Sustaining membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or designee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President of the University of Wisconsin System, the designee of the Friends Coordinating Council, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk .... 262-3421 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Maps , 262-5867 Archives reading room 262-3338 Membership .262-9613 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Microforms reading room . .262-9621 Editorial offices 262-9603 Museum tours . 262-7700 Film collections 262-0585 Newspapers reference . 262-9584 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . 262-9590 Picture and sound collections . 262-9581 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Public information office . 262-9606 Historic preservation 262-1339 Sales desk . 262-8000 Historic sites 262-9606 School services . 262-7539 Hours of operation 262-8060 Speakers bureau . 262-9606 ON THE COVER: University of Wisconsin—Madison crew practicing on the Yahara River with Tenney Park on the left, the Yahara River Parkway on the right, and the Sherman Avenue bridge and the tower of the former Hausmann Brewery (then a warehouse) at the upper left. Development of the parks and the crew's use of the river led, in 1905, to one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most heralded designs, the unbuilt Yahara River Boathouse, whose previously untold story begins on page 163. [UW Archives X25 2162] Volume 72, Number 3 / Spring, 1989 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Cudworth Beye, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Wisconsin 53706. Distributed Yahara River Boathouse, 1905 163 to members as part of their dues. (Individual membership, John O. Holzhueter $25; senior citizen individual membership, $20; family senior citizen individual, $20; family, $30; senior citizen family, $25; In Service to the State: supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500 or more.) Wisconsin Public Libraries Single numbers from Volume During World War I 199 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed copies available through Wayne A. Wiegand University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and Book Reviews 225 most issues of Volumes 21 through 56 are available from Book Review Index 232 Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New 233 York 10546. Wisconsin History Checklist Communications should be 236 addressed to the editor. The Accessions Society does not assume responsibility for statements Contributors 240 made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1989 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index to Journals in Editor History, 1838-1974. PAUL H. HASS Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are Associate Editors from the Historical Society's WILLIAM C. MARTEN collections. JOHN O. HOLZHUETER MADISON AND THE FOUR LAKES REGION Improvements made by the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, 1905. To depict its accomplishments and the region 'sfour lakes on a relatively .small map (only a portion of which is published here), the association adjusted the orientation by 45 degrees. Frank Lloyd Wright's Yahara Project, commissioned for the university's rowing club by a youthful friend of his, was to have been built just southeast of Tenney Park. University of Wisconsin grounds are on the Lake Mendota shore directly below the legend "Picnic Point." The fourth lake is not Lake Wingra, but Lake Kegonsa, which appears on the original map below Lake Waubesa. Wasmuth Portfolio, Plate L\' Cudworth Beye, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Yahara River Boathouse, 1905 By John O. Holzhueter HEN it comes to dating Frank discredit on Hitchcock, for he did the very best w Lloyd Wright's executed work he could with what information was available and unbuilt projects, scholars and enthusiasts to him in the 1930's, the decade when he con­ everywhere still rely largely upon Henry- ducted most of his research. Only subse­ Russell Hitchcock's chronological list pub­ quently have his successors come to question lished in 1942.' As with most pioneering some elements of the chronology he estab­ works of history, Hitchcock's inevitably has lished, and several have expressed special res­ been and will continue to be revised as new evi­ ervations about the 1902 date assigned to what dence comes to light. Such revisions reflect no Hitchcock calls the "Yahara Boat Club, Lake Mendota, Madison, Wis." On the basis of style AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am grateful to Paul Sprague, who pushed me to explain why the Yahara Project was initially delights of living or working in the spaces he created. Her­ called the University of Wisconsin Boat Club Project, bert, rest in peace. Katherine, long life! This article is thereby prompting the discovery of Cudworth Beye's scheduled to appear in substantially the same form in the commissioning the boathouse; to Barry C. Noonan and catalog for the autumn, 1988, exhibition at the Elvehjem Anne Biebel for newspaper research; again to Anne Museum of Art, "Frank Lloyd Wright and Madison: Eight Bipbel for all of the University of Wisconsin Archives re­ Decades of Artistic and Social Interaction," under the search; and to Alfred D. Beye, the son of Cudworth Beye, general editorship of Paul E. Sprague. for his co-operation, patience, and generosity. In all mat­ 'Henry-Russell Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials: ters related to Wright, I owe a large debt to Herbert and The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1887-1941 (New Katherine Jacobs, whose hospitality from 1961 through York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942; reprint, New York, 1963 enabled me to learn that the facts about a Wright de­ DaCapo Press, 1973), 105-130. The Yahara Project ap­ sign or structure pale in comparison to the ever-changing pears on p. 112. Copynghl ©1989 by The State Historical Soeiet\ of Wisconsin 163 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1989 alone, they have suspected that it was a later "Boathouse for the University of Wisconsin project. As it turns out, they were right.^ Boat Club." Wright described it there as a The issue is significant because Hitchcock "shelter for rowing shells on the ground floor assigns the Yahara Project great importance, with floating landing piers on either side. The and his assertions about it have influenced floor above is utilized as a club room with lock­ Wright scholarship ever since. He sees it as ers and bath." He also featured it prominently one of the turning points in Wright's artistic in important 1930 and 1931 traveling exhibi­ development, the benchmark for his passage tions in both the United States and Europe for into the realm of the abstract and the point at which he captioned it "Boat-House University which he successfully reduced shapes to their of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. / 1902 / Con­ basic geometry. He writes: crete. For long light rowing shells." This cap­ tion doubtless deserves the credit for the sub­ Despite the great production of exe­ sequent dating and description of the project.^ cuted work in the Oak Park years [1897— 1911], some of Wright's finest architec­ Wright also included the Yahara project in the tural conceptions found expression at 1907 Chicago Architectural Club show and in first only in projects. The little Yahara his last major book, A Testament, published two Boat Club was the first design in which years before his death.