The Dane County courthouse on March 23, 2015
Dane County was created by the Wisconsin Territorial legislature in 1836 from land which had been part of Iowa County. The new county was named after Nathan Dane who represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress. Dane had helped draft the Northwest Ordinance which formed the basis for the states which came from the Northwest Territory: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. The “arrowhead” region of Minnesota was part of the territory too.
The Dane County seal has the year 1839 on it, which seems a little odd given that the county was one of 15 counties created in 1836. But 1839 is the year the county was “organized” – apparently meaning that it acquired a county judge and whatever else is needed for a county government to become operational.
Madison is the county seat, as well as the capital of Wisconsin. Madison’s history goes back to 1829 when Judge James Doty bought land in the Four Lakes area, with the intention of creating a city on the isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. Anyone who has experienced rush hour traffic on the Isthmus in present-day Madison probably does not think kindly of Judge Doty!
Doty named the settlement in honor of President James Madison. Even though the city existed only on paper, the territorial legislature named Madison as the third territorial capital in November 1836 partly due to Doty’s persistent lobbying. The legislature first met in Madison in 1838. Madison was incorporated as a village in 1846 and remained the capital when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848. In 1849 the University of Wisconsin was founded in Madison, and in 1856 Madison was incorporated as a city.
The new Dane County courthouse is located at 215 South Hamilton Street in Madison. I visited the courthouse on Monday March 23, 2015 on my lunch hour. Hamilton Street is one of the diagonal streets leading to the Capitol Square, so the courthouse is kind of wedged into a triangular block. It’s only a few blocks away from the City-County Building which used to house the Dane County courts and still has some of the county offices.
I’ve lived in Dane County for most of my life, so it is hard to briefly say anything about my experiences here. I was born in Madison while my father was finishing his Master’s degree at the university. I moved with my parents to Outagamie County when I was a few months old. During my childhood, my grandmother lived in Madison and we frequently came to Dane County to visit her. I returned to Dane County after I finished high school to do my original undergraduate degree at UW – Madison. After graduation I spent four and a half years in Massachusetts in grad school before moving back to Madison for my first job; at the university as it turned out. And I’ve lived in Dane County ever since.