Tent Colony

On Willow Drive there once stood a very different kind of housing for UW-Madison students. Amenities included outhouses, a hand pump for water, and wooden platforms where students could pitch tents and set up housekeeping for the summer.

In 1912, the university decided to set up a tent colony on Lake Mendota for "school men of small income" in summer months. Located between what is now the Eagle Heights Community Gardens and the lake, it remained a part of Madison's summers for the next 50 years.

The men at the tent colony, which was named Camp Gallistelle in honor of its beloved caretakers, were allowed to bring wives and children. Those with bigger broods built tar-paper shacks on their platforms, and used canvas to divide the space into rooms. Since there was no electricity until 1928, cooking was done over open fires or Coleman stoves. Residents slept in hammocks, cots or sleeping bags.

A muddy little road connected the tent colony to the rest of campus, and students bicycled or paid 25 cents for a round-trip boat ride to University Pier. Delivery of ice and groceries was difficult. Eventually, the road to the colony was paved, leading to regular mail delivery, as well as milk and diaper truck service.

But even before that, no one worried about starving. Gardens provided vegetables, and the fishing was outstanding: There were perch, bluegill, sunfish, northern pike and an occasional bass. Men could study on the main pier as they watched their fishing lines. Lake Mendota also served as the colony's bathtub, with bathers tying bars of soap around their necks.

By the 1950s, the tent colony occupied five acres of some of the most majestic land in Madison. About 200 residents lived there in its heyday, many of them from other states and continents, and about half of them children.

In the beginning, students paid nothing to stay in the tent colony. A half-century later, it was still the best housing bargain in town, costing only $35 to rent a site for the entire summer.

In 1962, the university closed the colony because it was too expensive to maintain. Just 17 people were living at Camp Gallistelle during the last summer of its existence.