Madison in the Sixties: The Mifflin Street Block Party Riots, part 1 On April 29, 1969, an anonymous group calling itself the International Were Wolf Conspiracy posts flyers downtown advertising a party that Saturday in the 500 block of West Mifflin St. The illustration is of a man with a bandolero, with a call for […]
Madison, fourth week of September, 1969
Mayor Dyke’s special three-man panel investigating the Mifflin Street Block Party riots earlier this year issues its report, blaming both sides and pleasing neither. The “greatest factor in causing the confrontations and disorders,” it finds, was “the underlying antagonism which existed” between Mifflanders and the police. The fact that residents knew that police had […]
Madison, third week of August, 1969
Madison, the third week of August, 1969 Madison’s mass transit system teeters on the verge of chaos as the shareholders of the Madison Bus Co. vote to dissolve the company and go out of business on November 10 – the same day the ongoing city subsidy runs out. Although the company can’t shut down until […]
Madison, the third week of July, 1969
The already-dim prospects for a civic auditorium and convention center at Law Park fade even further as Mayor Bill Dyke says the city doesn’t have the hotel rooms to support a convention center or the money to build a first-class auditorium there. “We as much need a new dump as we need an auditorium,” the […]
Madison, Third Week of June 1969
Mayor Bill Dyke’s special commission investigating the Mifflin Block Party Riots of early May gets underway, and hears from a witness who directly challenges the mayor’s account of a key point. Dyke has maintained that he was at Blue Mounds State Park with his son all day on Saturday May 3, and didn’t hear of […]
