Property Record
632 WINGRA (VILAS PARK)
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Annie Stewart Memorial Fountain |
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| Other Name: | Annie Stewart Memorial Fountain |
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| Reference Number: | 116011 |
| Location (Address): | 632 WINGRA (VILAS PARK) |
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| County: | Dane |
| City: | Madison |
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| Year Built: | 1924 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1983 |
| Historic Use: | statue/sculpture |
| Architectural Style: | Neoclassical/Beaux Arts |
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| Wall Material: | Marble |
| Architect: | Frederic J. Clasgens |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
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| Additional Information: | Map code 0709-271-0099-4. "In 1906 Mrs. Mary Stewart left $2000 to the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association to build a public drinking fountain in memory of her daughter, Annie C. Stewart, who died prematurely at age 16. In 1917 the MPPDA commissioned Ohio-born sculptor Frederic C. Clasgens to design an appropriate structure to be located adjacent to what was then the main pedestrian entrance to the Vilas Zoo. Calsgens had received his first training at the Cincinnati Art Institute and then spent most of the next two decades working in Europe. He probably owed this Madison commission to the influence of his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. B. J. Halligan, who were long-time Madison residents and Park and Pleasure Drive Association members. Clasgen's design featured a round concrete basin decorated with ocean motifs. On the tall concrete pedestal at the center was placed a group carved from marble representing a mermaid, a dolphin, and a triton (a youthful attendant of the gods of the sea). Two marble tritons adorned the sides of the basin and held conch shells from which drinking water flowed. The work was completed by 1925, but vandals damaged the fountain in 1931 and 1943. The City is now contemplating restoring the fountain to its original condition." The Greenbush-Vilas Neighborhood: A Walking Tour. Madison Landmarks Commission and the Brittingham-Vilas Neighborhood Association, 1991. It was vandalized once in 1948, when a small Triton was destroyed by a group of young teenage boys and again more recently when the facial features of the central statue of the mermaid were lost. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Select Magazine, May, 1962. The Capital Times 4/8/1955, p. 13. The Greenbush-Vilas Neighborhood: A Walking Tour. Madison Landmarks Commission and the Brittingham-Vilas Neighborhood Association, 1991. See SOS! files at the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. for more information. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |