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Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds

Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in WisconsinCommons category link is locally definedMounds in WisconsinNational Register of Historic Places in Madison, WisconsinWisconsin Registered Historic Place stubs
Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds (7398695550)
Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds (7398695550)

Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds are a group of Native American mounds in Madison, Wisconsin. The Bear Effigy Mound is in the public Bear Mound Park, while the Curtis Mounds are on a neighboring residential property. As its name indicates, the Bear Effigy Mound is in the shape of a bear, and is intact except for a section of the bear's leg. The Curtis Mounds were seven linear mounds running down the hill and several conical mounds. Now only parts of one or two linear mounds remain, on private property.Mound Builder civilizations built the mounds between 500 and 1200 A.D. to serve as burial sites. Bear-shaped mounds represented earth and humanity in the Mound Builder tradition; other animal-shaped mounds, such as birds and lizards, were used to represent other elements.The mounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1974.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds
Vilas Avenue, Madison

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N 43.063055555556 ° E -89.411388888889 °
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Bear Effigy Mound

Vilas Avenue
53706 Madison
Wisconsin, United States
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Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds (7398695550)
Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds (7398695550)
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Nearby Places

James B. Bowen House
James B. Bowen House

The James B. Bowen House (also known as the Seth Van Bergen House) is an early Italianate-styled house clad in cut sandstone, built in 1855 on what was then a farm on the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.As early Madison grew, the Greenbush Addition was platted in 1854. Just to the west of that addition lay the 60-acre farm of pioneer farmer and real estate investor Seth Van Bergen and his wife Harriet. They built this house in 1855 as the centerpiece of their farm, now a block west of Meriter Hospital. Its main block is two stories with a square footprint, clad in carefully cut, local sandstone. Most of the details are Italianate style, including these hallmarks of the style: the brackets under the eaves, the low-pitched roof, and the centered cupola with paired brackets supporting its eaves. The window decoration is simple for Italianate - perhaps harking back to Greek Revival style. The one-story rear wing once housed the kitchen and servants' quarters. Originally, iron cresting ran around the edge of the roof, a one-story veranda with wooden Ionic columns fronted the east side of the house, and a matching frame carriage house stood to the southwest, but those have been removed.The Van Bergens farmed until 1859, growing mostly oats and wheat on their 60 acres. Then they sold the house to James Barton Bowen of Connecticut, Dane County's first homeopathic physician. Bowen was elected mayor of Madison in 1871 and was involved in other business ventures, including presiding over the Park Savings Bank.After Bowen died in 1881, his daughter and her husband Wayne Ramsay inherited the house. They replaced the original veranda with a wraparound porch in the 1890s, which was later reduced to today's porch on the east side. They split the 60-acre farm into residential lots and sold them off around the turn of the century. Their son James took over in 1914 and lived there until 1923. After that fraternities lived in the house in 1925 and 1927, it was an orphan's home in 1929, and then was split into apartments by 1935.In 1972, the house was designated a landmark by the Madison Landmarks Commission. In 1982 it was listed on the NRHP. Today the Barton house is one of Madison's oldest surviving sandstone houses - "a prime example of well executed masonry construction that flourished in Madison during the 1850s and 1860s."