University
Bay makes the Campus Natural Areas and the UW-Madison Campus a
unique place. The Bay and the lands along it provide a place to
enjoy nature and get away from the city. University Bay, with
its loons, great blue herons, and other wildlife, appears to be
a timeless oasis. However, humans have used the Bay and the surrounding
area for thousands of years. Recently the area has faced repeated
threats from human development. Despite many environmental victories,
the Bay continues to face challenges.
What is University Bay ?
Today University Bay is a 262-acre shallow area
of Lake Mendota protected by Picnic Point from the winds and waves
of the main lake. Willow Creek drains into it. The Bay provides
a home for a diverse set of plants and animals that like the shallow
and sheltered Bay.
University Bay has undergone a series of changes. Like Lake Mendota,
glaciers created the Bay by converting a steep valley into a broad,
gradual Bay. After the glaciers retreated about 13,000 years ago,
Lake Mendota was larger and deeper. A larger Bay covered the playing
field area and lapped at the surrounding ridges. Eventually the
lake outlet eroded, lowering the lake levels. A sandbar (now Willow
Drive ) separated a sedge meadow area from the Bay. After settlement,
a series of dams at Tenney Park raised the lake levels again, flooding
the existing marshes and creating new marshes including the 130
acre marsh beyond the sandbar.
Human Usage of the Bay
Humans have lived in the University Bay area for many years. About
2000 years ago Native Americans built seven mound complexes near
the Bay. More recently, the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) hunted, fished,
and harvested wild rice and other plants in the Bay marshes.
Early settlers continued to use the resources of the Bay. They
collected marsh hay. Tony Breitenbach remembers fishing from the
back of his Shorewood home on University Bay Drive (A. C. Breitenbach
interview, July 11, 1973). People hunted game. The Wisconsin Conservation
Department declared the UW-owned portion of the Bay a University
Bay Game Refuge in 1927 at the request of the Board of Regents,
ending shooting on campus. Legal hunting in the Bay region finally
ended in 1941 when the UW acquired Picnic Point. In 1944 the University
Bay Game Refuge was expanded to protect 692 acres.
Developing and Preserving the Bay
From the beginning the University recognized
the importance of the Bay. In the 1890s, when the predecessor of
the Park and Pleasure Drive Association asked to build a road across
the sandbar inside the Bay, the University Board of Regents refused
to allow a causeway to be built across the Bay. Instead, Willow
Drive was built along the sandbar at the old edge of the lake,
separating the 130 acre marsh from the Bay itself. This road allowed
easy access to the west campus and encouraged its development.
Over the years, the marsh inside Willow Drive, except for the
small Class of 1918 Marsh, was drained, filled, and developed.
In 1894 the 20 acre marsh east of Willow Creek was converted into
experimental fields. Between 1914 and 1922, the 84 acre floating
marsh west of Willow Creek was turned into experimental fields
using tiles and a pump. When the tiles broke down in the 1960s,
much of this area was developed in an environmentally sensitive
manner. While part was developed as surface parking lots (Lot 60)
and the Nielsen Tennis Stadium, much of this area was maintained
as open space, such as the playing fields and the Class of 1918
Marsh. Nevertheless, today development pressures are becoming more
intense because most of the
available Campus land has been built on. This year the University is proposing
to build a four-story parking ramp on surface parking lot 76 by the Nielsen
Tennis Stadium because no alternative location is available.
University
Bay and its diverse plant community in 1914. Courtesy of the UW
Archives. Meuer Collection
University Bay Project
From 1972 to 1976 the University Bay Project studied the history
and ecology of the Bay area with the goal of minimizing the environmental
impact of humans in the increasingly utilized Far West Campus.
Initiated by a $87,000 Golden Jubilee gift from the Class of 1922,
the Project produced a diverse set of publications. The Project
used a $69,000 Brittingham Grant to develop a master plan for the
University Bay region, University Bay Study . It compiled
a bibliography of all previous work on the Bay. Geological, water
quality, and vegetation studies were completed. Plans for the management
of the Class of 1918 Marsh were developed. R. E. McCabe and S.
A. Carpenter produced a manuscript, A Niche in Time,
a history with photographs of the University Bay region through
1948. Unfortunately, like many of the publications of the University
Bay Project, this history was never published. It, like all of
the Bay Project materials, can be found in the University Bay Project
boxes in the Steenbock Memorial Library Archives.
Although much of the east side of the Bay is built upon, a significant
amount of land along the Bay has been preserved. However, this has
required continual vigilance. When the University was trying to acquire
Picnic Point in 1939, a group of Madisonians wished to develop University
Bay into a recreational area by putting a road across the Bay and
draining and/or filling much of the inner Bay with sand to create
a beach. Without authorization, some University officials ordered
cinders to be dumped in the Bay at the base of Picnic Point, creating
what is now the Picnic Point Parking Lot and beginning the process
of filling the inner Bay. A wide variety of UW personnel objected
to this proposal which would destroy the natural character of the
Bay. A 1939 petition notes the importance of this area:
This area has been for forty years or more an extremely useful
part of the teaching and research equipment of our departments.
It serves as a resting and feeding area for migrating waterfowl,
and as a spawning area and nursery for game and other fishes.
There is no other area quite like it within reasonably easy
access. The protected shallow water makes possible an aquatic
flora not duplicated elsewhere in the Madison area (Biology Faculty
to Pres. E. B. Fred, petition, June 7, 1939 ).
This plan was dropped, but
in 1940 a new harbor and marina were proposed for University
Bay that would require dredging and filling the Bay. Aldo Leopold
wrote in opposition to the proposal, noting that the University
needed to set a good example in order to encourage farmers to
preserve marshes (A. Leopold to A. M. Brayton, letter, Aug.
31, 1940). In 1941 the UW acquired Picnic Point, protecting the
area from commercial development.
Today Picnic Point is an essential part of the Campus Natural Areas.
The Bay edge has been preserved from Limnology Laboratory to Picnic
Point, forming a natural corridor called the Howard Temin Lakeshore
Path. The Bay provides a place for people to walk, boat, fish, observe
nature, and watch the sunset.
The University Bay has been studied for over 100 years and continues
to be monitored by students and researchers. These studies indicate
that the plant and animal communities of the Bay have changed over
the last century, probably partially because of a decrease in water
quality due to human development of the surrounding uplands. These
ecological issues will be explored in future issues of FCNA News and
on the FCNA Web Site (www.uwalumni.com/fcna).
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