Photo by Retiring Guy
Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association
A colored postcard highlights the Lakeshore Path in fall colors. The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association (MPPDA) was responsible for building and maintaining an extensive network of recreational carriage roads in Madison beginning in the early 1890s. In fact, their first project was to erect a bridge over Willow Creek and to construct a “ Bay Road ” along the shore of Lake Mendota. This inaugural route exists today—but we now call it the Lakeshore Path. Explore the remnants of these pleasure drives all through the Preserve.
Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association
The next time you walk around the top of the bluff in Eagle Heights Woods, or jog down the Howard Temin Lakeshore Path, imagine a time more than 100 years ago, when city dwellers used horse-drawn carriages to traverse these same routes—escaping the unpleasant urban noise and odors so prevalent during this era—to enjoy a little tranquility in natural areas along the Lake Mendota shoreline.
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