Factors in How Madison's Physical Layout Came to be

• More than 14,000 years ago – Mother Nature and the glacier played an important part in how Madison looks today. As it bulldozed it's way through the area it changed the terrain. Where it dug the deepest we have our lakes. Where it left the highest hills we built our most important buildings, the State Capitol & Bascom Hall.
  
  
• 1836 James Doty had a plat map made spanning from the Yahara river on the east side up to where the University is now on the west. That portion of Madison today is very true to the original plat. The placement of the Capitol Building, Layout of the streets and their names, are very much intact.
  
  
• 1870 to 1915 Removal of the Dividing Ridge
  
  
• 1917 to 1922 The subdivision that never was, the Lost City
  
  
• 1963 to 1967 John Nolen Causeway built
  
  
• 1960s The Greenbush Triangle Redevelopment Project

• Effigy Mounds
  
• Law Park Landfill
  
• Wards
  
• MPPDA
• Building size restriction
• Yahara River dredging