Orton Park is a public park located at 1100 Spaight Street in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

History

The land was designated as a public cemetery in 1846, the same year Madison was chartered as a village. Madison quickly outgrew the cemetery, and by the 1850s the Common Council was already looking for a larger site. In 1877, the graves located at the site were moved to Forest Hill Cemetery. The site officially opened as a park in 1887, making it the first public park in Madison. Other proposals for the site included a

beer garden A beer garden (German: ''Biergarten'') is an outdoor area in which beer and food are served, typically at shared tables shaded by trees. Beer gardens originated in Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital city, in the 19th century, and remain co ...

and a hospital. It was named after

Wisconsin Supreme Court The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the state judicial system of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. In addition to hearing appeals of lower Wisconsin court decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court also ...

justice Harlow S. Orton. The park has hosted neighborhood events since its creation; these originally included concerts and ice cream socials, and have more recently included a

farmer's market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...

and neighborhood festival. The park was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on December 18, 1978. It is located within the Orton Park Historic District, which is also listed on the National Register.

References

{{reflist Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin Geography of Madison, Wisconsin