This week’s challenge presents two photos from the same tucked-away landmark. The photo at left (click to enlarge) shows where the plaque is. Another clue: the designer of this 1938 limestone memorial also designed Madison’s Glenwood Children’s Park. Worthy of a story in his own right, he was born on a large farm in Denmark, served in the Prussian Imperial Guard, immigrated to America when his family disapproved of him marrying someone (they felt) beneath their class, worked as street sweeper for the Chicago parks district—and then became a renowned landscape architect. What is this rock feature? Answers are due by next Monday (how to play the challenge).
Listen below to audio from the same location. Singing cardinals don’t give away the answer, but the sound of gently flowing water is suggestive!
Our previous photo challenge asked for the location of this effigy mound group (mounds in gray, including the block-long bird, no longer exist). The two remaining mounds overlook Lake Monona in Hudson Park, near Harry Whitehorse’s now-bronze Effigy Tree sculpture.
Unseen Madison 
March 23, 2010 at 7:30 am |
It’s a council ring. This one is in the arboretum, dedicated to the designer’s grandson’s memory.
March 23, 2010 at 2:33 pm |
Hi,
I found your site while looking up information on Madison’s Dead Lake Ridge (a.k.a. Dividing Ridge). The mystery site of the week is the U.W. Arboretum’s Kenneth Jensen Wheeler Council Ring, designed by his uncle, renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. The Wheeler Council Ring is in the Arboretum’s Wingra Oak Savanna area, between Monroe Street and Ho-Nee-Um pond.
I work at the Arboretum, and so I am lucky enough to visit this area regularly. Volunteers are active in this area the first Saturday morning of each month from 9 a.m. to noon to restore the historic oak savanna around the Council Ring.
Cheers, Judy Kingsbury
March 23, 2010 at 4:08 pm |
One of Madison’s hidden near westside historic gems – the historic Kenneth Jensen Wheeler Council Ring.
This site was dedicated in memorium to the grandson (and heir apparent) of Landscape Architect Jens Jensen. Wheeler died as a 23 year old senior studying landscape architecture at the UW in 1935.
The site was selected by Jensen because of the spring which issue from that location. The springs were believed to be held sacred by the native americans.
March 24, 2010 at 7:11 pm |
These photos are of the Wheeler Council Ring found in the Wingra Oak Savanna portion of the UW Arboretum (near Ho Nee Um Pond, just off Monroe St, north of its intersection with Seminole Hwy). I visited this site last year, a very underrated area of the Arboretum for sure.
March 24, 2010 at 7:57 pm |
This is the circle that is in the arboretum just off Monroe street just past the shopping district but before it splits into odana and nakoma. There is a ring along the path before you cross the creek and get to the boardwalk and the marshy area – how’s that for descriptive without an actual title?
March 29, 2010 at 8:57 am |
Photo challenge #9 looks like the Wheeler Council Ring in the Arboretum, off the bike path, near the Nakoma end of Monroe St.