This week in Vilas
Nothing on Vilas’s calendar for the next two weeks yet.
About Vilas
The Vilas neighborhood sits on the north shore of Lake Wingra, on Madison's near west side. It began as the Wingra Park subdivision: William T. Fish bought the land in 1889, the first houses went up on an open field sloping down to the lake around 1891, and a streetcar line and street lights followed before Madison annexed it in 1903. In 1904 William and Anna Vilas gave the land for Henry Vilas Park, named for their son, on the rule that no one would ever pay to get in, and the free Henry Vilas Zoo opened there in 1911. Today families come for the beach, the lagoon with its old stone bridges, skating in winter, the 'Old Woman in a Shoe' slide and the zoo, and walk home past Queen Anne and Craftsman houses that make up a National Register historic district.