The Rise of the Factories
Another significant event for Madison and for Tenney-Lapham was the arrival of the first railroad, the Milwaukee & Mississippi, in 1854. Just west of the Yahara River the tracks ran diagonally across part of the block bounded by North Thornton and East Washington and North Dickinson and East Mifflin, a block which, not coincidentally, later become the site of the area's first factory, the Gamhart Reaper Works, in 1871.
Although the east end of the Tenney-Lapham area was experiencing commercial growth in the 1850s, the west end received far less attention. Only a few homeowners, such as Robert Hastie, who built his house on Brearly Street in 1854, were willing to live so far from the center of town. The next twenty years would see only a handful of additional houses built in the west end of the neighborhood. One of these, however, is worthy of note, the remarkable and highly eccentric stone Gothic Revival style "castle" that was built directly across Brearly Street from the Hastie house by Benjamin Walker, a transplanted Englishman, in 1861. The grounds of this house occupied the whole block from Gorham Street to Lake Mendota where the Christ Presbyterian Church and Castle Place are now located; it was one of Madison's best known sites until it was demolished in 1893.
Much more important for the future of the area was the Garnhart Reaper Works, which was built on East Washington Avenue next to the railroad tracks in 1871. This was the first factory in the Tenney-Lapham area. Its establishment resulted in the construction of a cluster of homes on the high ground north of the factory site that was the earliest housing built in the east end of the neighborhood.
Real change on a large scale finally came to this part of the neighborhood in 1882 when the Garnhart Works were purchased by the Fuller & Johnson Manufacturing Company. This rapidly expanding factory needed a host of workers whose new houses transformed the area for good.
The opening of an electric streetcar line to serve the area in 1892 was another major contributing factor in the growth of the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood. This line ran north from the Capitol Square down N. Pinckney Street to E. Johnson Street, then ran eastward along Johnson Street to Baldwin Street. It then turned and continued south on Baldwin Street past the Gisholt Machine Company and across the isthmus to Williamson Street. The opening of this new route meant that lots all along its length that had previously been considered too distant for those who worked on the Capitol Square or in the factories on the east side of the city now had a reliable means of getting to work. The result was that new houses began to be built along the whole length of the high ground in the neighborhood.
Efforts to drain and fill the marshes also began in the 1890s. Much of the land that now borders both sides of Sherman Avenue west of the Yahara came into being when it was platted and filled by the Willow Park Land Co. between 1892 and 1895. In 1900, the first work on Tenney Park also began. This was the first public park on the shore of Lake Mendota. It was also the first park to be created by the Madison Park & Pleasure Drive Association, which also straightened and parked the land bordering the Yahara River between 1903 and 1906.
The draining of the marshes, the creation of the parks, and the growth of factories all brought new residents and new houses to the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood, which, by the turn of the century, had grown to the point where a school to educate area children was a necessity. This was the first Lapham School, which was built in 1900 at the end of East Dayton Street near the Yahara River.
With the completion of Tenney Park in 1916, the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood achieved maturity. Large new houses lined many of the lake lots along Sherman Avenue. The new inland lots created by the filling and draining of the marshes were being occupied by smaller homes belonging to the increasingly prosperous middle class of Madison and to the highly skilled and generally well paid workers at the nearby factories. By the time the new Lapham School(S was built in 1940, the neighborhood was complete and was ready to embark on the modem phase of its history.