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I was bored and tired of hanging around the house all day like I've done for the past month straight, so I went to follow up on some old leads I never got around to checking out.
The first of these was "The Lost City." In the late 1910's Madison was experiencing a housing crisis, and the Lake Forest Company had a solution. They planned to construct a massive residential neighborhood on Madison's south side that was to be called the Lake Forest Community, built to house a thousand people. They built the roads and laid a few house foundations only to discover a massive problem; the ground was too wet, and the roads began to sink into the earth under their own weight.
Not to be deterred, it was determined that the Lake Forest Community development would go forward. They decided to bring in additional fill material and construct a series of canals to lower the water table, advertising it as "the new Venice." However, this never happened. They didn't use enough fill material, and it would be prohibitively costly to redo all the roads already built or fund the canals. These factors combined with WWI, an economic recession, and political opposition in the city government forced the Lake Forest Company to disband in 1922, and the project was abandoned.
Eventually the University of Wisconsin bought the land in the 1930's, setting it aside for a nature preserve that is now called the UW Arboretum. They allowed nature to reclaim most of the development, with a few roads serving as paved hiking trails. It was nicknamed "The Lost City" and it's been a local legend ever since.
These three pictures are the front porch steps of a house that was never completed and the basement of that same house. The whole area was littered with broken bottles and rusted metal junk from the early 1900s.
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The black and white image below is an aerial photo of the Lost City from the early 1930's, before it became overgrown. The image below it is a screenshot of Google Maps in modern times, showing how the forest has reclaimed most of the streets. You can still see one of the main roads is used as a hiking trail.
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This hiking trail used to be one of the main roads. If you kick away the dirt and leaves you can even uncover the pavement.
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I also stumbled across a junkyard about fifteen minutes away that looked semi if not entirely abandoned. It was mostly construction equipment and old vehicles with probably over 100 dumpsters stacked up in one section. I don't really know any of the history on this place, I just found it on Google Maps that morning.
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Ugh, UER uploader compression is... not great. Anyway, not a bad way to spend a sunny day social distancing.
[last edit 4/24/2020 7:03 AM by Aran - edited 2 times]
"Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
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Nice pictures, and glad you got out of the house 
I've never been to the Lost City! I've wanted to for a while but I never ended up biking over from campus. The funny thing is that it looks mostly like old farm footings/dumping grounds and you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from that if you didn't know better (like the stuff at Owen Conservation Park).
Also, pretty sure that junkyard is not abandoned. Pellitteri stores extra dumpsters there, as well as a number of other abandoned-looking spots around town.
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Posted by s0phie
Nice pictures, and glad you got out of the house
I've never been to the Lost City! I've wanted to for a while but I never ended up biking over from campus. The funny thing is that it looks mostly like old farm footings/dumping grounds and you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from that if you didn't know better (like the stuff at Owen Conservation Park).
Also, pretty sure that junkyard is not abandoned. Pellitteri stores extra dumpsters there, as well as a number of other abandoned-looking spots around town.
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Good to know, thanks! I wasn't really sure about the junkyard.
The Lost City was a nice low stress explore that only took a few hours. I heard rumors a long time ago that there might be a boarded up house over in the neighborhood that's in the northern portion of the Arboretum, but I couldn't find it when I went looking. Either it's gone now or it never was there at all- it could be either one since my information on it was from 2015 and it's in a rich neighborhood.
"Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
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Posted by Aran
Good to know, thanks! I wasn't really sure about the junkyard.
The Lost City was a nice low stress explore that only took a few hours. I heard rumors a long time ago that there might be a boarded up house over in the neighborhood that's in the northern portion of the Arboretum, but I couldn't find it when I went looking. Either it's gone now or it never was there at all- it could be either one since my information on it was from 2015 and it's in a rich neighborhood.
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i can confirm there's an abandoned house there that I was going to check out last fall but didn't get around to. if you look at city data it's not too hard to find!
[last edit 4/30/2020 9:12 PM by s0phie - edited 1 times]
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The one and only time I tried to add something to the UER database. I thought it was pretty cool, especially considering the town doesn't have a whole lot to offer...
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Posted by NotQuiteHuman
The one and only time I tried to add something to the UER database. I thought it was pretty cool, especially considering the town doesn't have a whole lot to offer...
https://i.imgur.com/4aKFlP6h.jpg
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Huh, my database entry for it has been up all week without problems. It's a lot more abandoned than a lot of stuff on the DB, and I definitely agree with you that it's both pretty cool and one of the few things around.
"Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
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Good work representing Madison, Aran!
Flickr: http://www.flickr....os/kenfagerdotcom/ |
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