The Hoofer History

This history was written by Bob Peterson, Hoofer president in 1952-53 probably around 1955 or '56 with assistance from Bill Thomas and a couple of others. Edited by Porter Butts; January 1959; Retyped January 2006. Compiled by Jim Rogers (version 11/09)

It all started with skiing. A group of Norwegian student ski jumpers supplied the enthusiasm leading to the construction of a wooden ski slide on Muir Knoll in the winter of 1919. This scaffold had fallen into disrepair by 1930 and was condemned (finally added to a Homecoming bonfire), whereupon jumping activity at the University was forced to cease. The desire to continue skiing was the impetus which led to the conception of the Wisconsin Hoofers.
In 1931, a committee consisting of Professor H. C. Bradley, faculty member of the Union Council (a member of the Sierra Club since his student days at the University of California and president of the Club in 1957-59); Porter Butts, Union director; Edward Thomas, Union staff; and three students, Henry Baker, Sally Owen Marshall, and Marilla Eggler, was formed to consider establishing a University Skiing and Outing Club. The club organized as part of the Union, was named the Wisconsin Hoofers. Beginners, or apprentice members were called “Heels” – the influence of the Dartmouth Outing Club (then the most active and best known college ski and outing club) which called its novices “Heelers.”
Henry Baker became the first president. Sally Marshall, the first woman skier to ride the new Muir Knoll steel ski jump, was responsible for the design of the first Hoofer patch – a black horseshoe superimposed on a red W, signifying that Hoofers go places under their own power (“they hoof it”), and a symbol of good luck.
The first projects were to get a supply of skis for rent and to replace the old ski scaffold.
At that time, skiing was virtually unknown in Wisconsin except among hardcore of hardy Norwegians and Finns who had brought their skis and skiing interest with them from the old country and built a few jumping scaffolds in the northern part of the state (plus the Miur Knoll scaffold and one at Stoughton). No stores in Madison sold skis, except for children (pine skis with leather toe straps). Bindings, poles, and ski boots were unheard of.
The Hoofers had to order skies through the Dartmouth Outing Club. They insisted on having bindings (leather in those days – which had a way of stretching and coming off) and poles, so that students could learn their skiing correctly. The equipment – 20 sets – was racked in the Union billiard room and rented from the billiard desk. This was the club’s initial source of income.
To raise money for a new ski scaffold, Porter Butts persuaded the Class of 1932 to give $700 as its class memorial; Dr. Bradley raised funds from friends and added a gift of his own; profits from ski meets paid the balance. Total cost of about $1700. Carl Houm, a Milwaukee engineer and ski enthusiast, designed the steel scaffold. It was erected in 1932.

[At the dedication ceremonies for the new jump, in February, 1933, Charles Bradley ' 35,'47,'50 (one of Doc's sons) flew off the scaffold in a purple tunic and baggy pants, with a false mustache and a long braid to which a firecracker had been attached. The Daily Cardinal called him "Wun Long Hop," saying that his jump displayed perfect Chinese form. Also at the dedication, Sally Marshall became the first woman to negotiate the jump. Says Butts: "She made it all the way standing up˜but I don't think she ever did it again."]

The jump was considered one of the best small jumps in the country at the time (hill record, 106 feet). The Hoofers began their annual ski tournaments in 1933, inviting both college and Central U.S. Ski Association jumpers. Touring and downhill skiing were encouraged near the campus and in the Baraboo Hills, and weekend trips to Northern Wisconsin were organized.
So, in a very real sense, Hoofers had much to do with establishing skiing interest in Wisconsin – long before it became the rage elsewhere.
From the beginning Hoofers sponsored other outing activities besides skiing (though skiing was the main focus of the club’s interest). In the ‘30’s a trip went out almost every weekend – hiking, climbing, archery, camping. (At this time Hoofers had a room in the basement of the president’s old home – where the theater now stands – as a place to keep gear). It became a tradition in the late thirties for Hoofers to hike the 25 miles around Lake Mendota in spring and fall. (An all time record of 4 hours and 2 minutes was set for this hike in 1941). Devils Lake also became a center of activity. Arrangements were made with the state park Commission for the overnight use of Kirkland Lodge at the south end on weekends.
The first concrete toboggan slide in the U.S., modeled after a slide in Canada and lined with frozen snow was built by the Union on Observatory Hill as a memorial gift of Class of 1933. It seems that Wisconsin students did not appreciate the 10 cent charge made by Hoofers to pay the cost of maintaining the slide. This ill feeling may have been behind the burning of the toboggan tool shack in 1934. But the slide kept going, on and off (weather troubles), until Elizabeth Waters dorm was built in 1937, spelling the end of the slide. Hoofers still rented toboggans, for use on Blackhawk Country Club hill, but there were so many accidents (people hitting trees of going over golf bunkers in the dark) that toboggans were finally abandoned.
The Hoofers ski team began to reach its peak in 1938. Lloyd Ellingson, a Hoofer, had made the U.S. Olympic team in the early ‘30’s and won the intercollegiate jumping contest at Lake Placid. Now the famous Bietila brothers from Ishpeming came to Wisconsin, aided by Dr. Bradley. Walter, Hoofer captain, made the Olympic team in 1936 and 1940. His brother Paul took third place in the International Ski Federation meet that year. In 1939 Paul won the National Intercollegiate Ski Championship. He made the 1940 Olympic team and was voted “the best American-born jumper.” While practicing for the Olympics in St. Paul he was killed in a jumping accident. A plaque was dedicated to his memory by the class of 1940, and it hangs in Hoofers Quarters today.
Hoofers moved in the present quarters in the theater wing of the Union in 1939. There almost weren’t any Hoofers quarters. Construction funds ran short and it was proposed that the outing quarters along with some other facilities be omitted. But again, Dr. Bradley and Union Director Butts held out for going ahead. With a place to work and plan and facilities for handling equipment, plus a permanent staff advisor (Charles Bradley, former Hoofer president), and a soaring ski team, enthusiasm hit a new high, and the years until the beginning of the war were red letter ones for Hoofers.
Winter and spring ski trips were arranged at Berthoud Pass in Colorado. Ski team members ranged from Lake Placid to Sun Valley and Alta, participating in national meets. A junior hill was built by Dr. Bradley at Shorewood Hills, and Hoofers began training future prospects from grade schools.
The ski team in 1940-41 took 85 places above the 10th in 20 meets, 15 places in national championships, and 8 places in Central, winning the National Intercollegiate Ski Team Championship. Famous members of this team were Walter Bietila, who was, incidentally, catcher n the Badger baseball team; Joseph Bradley, another of the seven Bradley sons; Jurgen Poly, Swiss Olympic team member in 1936 and 1940; Hubert “Stinky” Dickenson, winner of the intercollegiate Cross Country Championship after only 3 months of skiing (later, in the army ski troops he was assigned to the job of teaching Eskimos and Indians to ski in Alaska); and Reuben Silvola, intercollegiate combined champion and student coach of the Hoofer team.
Silvola had the Hoofer team train by rowing the crew training shell and by skiing on dry leaves before the snow fell in Madison. About the dry-leaves skiing he was quoted saying, “It’s mighty hard on skis, but excellent training for the legs.” With skis on, his skiers were said to be able to jump five-foot fences after his training course. Among other things, Silvola operated the snack bar in the Hoofer quarters each afternoon as a place to get a cup of coffee and hamburger after being out on the Muir Knoll hill.
Hoofers grew in other directions also during this time. The University Hunt Club joined Hoofers to become the Hoofer Riding Club. Hoofers sponsored its first horse show in 1940, in the Stock Pavilion; and the Club won many ribbons in intercollegiate shows.
Six bicycles were bought for rental by the Hoofer Store. Dr. Norris Hall of the chemistry department was appointed Hoofer faculty advisor to serve along with Dr. Bradley. Organized ice boating was sponsored by Hoofer for the first time. Winter Carnival and the administration of Blackhawk Lodge, the old Woman’s Athletic Association cottage at Eagle Heights, complete with resident chaperones, and a stopping place and warming and picnic spot for skiers, canoers, bikers, and hikers were taken over by Hoofers in 1939.
A group of intercollegiate sail-boat racing champions were responsible for the organization of the Sailing Club in 1940. Four hundred and sixty students signed up for a dry land sailing course at $1 per head to raise money for a dingy fleet. In 1941 eight class X Olympic cat boats were purchased with contributions from interested alumni, faculty, and townspeople. The first Yacht Club dance, called the “Commodore’s Ball,” was held in Great Hall that spring.
The war followed this prosperity and Hoofers suffered as a result of the lack of student leadership. But service men and women took an active part in campus affairs. Truax Field men held several positions on Hoofer Council during 1945. Some trouble was had with one Truax man, the Outing Club chairman, whose chief desire in life seemed to be rappelling down the walls of the Union.
The ski team placed third in intercollegiate competition in 1947. Dr. Bradley retired in 1948 after 17 years with Hoofers. He was benefactor, advisor, participant, and charter member. Blackhawk Lodge was turned back to the Young family (which bought Picnic Point and Eagle Heights) in 1949; cars had now come into general use and student outers wanted to go farther a field – the expense of the Lodge wasn’t worthwhile. And by this time the Hoofers had developed Twin Valley, near Cross Plains, as a downhill ski area, complete with a balky rope tow. (The Twin Valley area has now been taken over by the city YMCA, and Madison’s Blackhawk Ski Club, an outgrowth of the Hoofer Ski Club, has built a scaffold nearby).
Hoofers began to grow again in 1949. Hoofer Mountaineers were organized and Sailing Club began to sell its old Olympics and to buy Class X Cubs. By 1953 the club had accumulated ten Cubs. The Sailors went about winning, or placing high, in intercollegiate regattas from Massachusetts Tech to Michigan, Northwestern, and Lake Mendota. In 1958 Hoofers were Big 10 representative at the Rose Bowl regatta.
Canoe Club was organized in 1952; it purchased three canvas canoes with loans from members. In 1953 they added the first aluminum canoe to the fleet. Since then there have been innumerable trips down the Wolf, Wisconsin, and Lemonweir Rivers and through Canada’s Quetico lakes.
The last big Winter Carnival was held in 1956. Its discontinuation was due to the changeable Madison weather and to lack of snow. The use of Muir Knoll ski jump was restricted because of parking below the hill. The wooden planking began to go to pieces and it didn’t seem worthwhile to replace it because of its limited use. Finally it was condemned in 1956. The University agreed to reimburse the Union with $1000 to be used for another general outing facility. (The reimbursement from the toboggan slide was used to buy the kitchen equipment for the Hoofer Store).
In 1957, the ski jump was moved to Hoyt Park, under agreement with the city parks department whereby Hoofers can practice on it and hold meets there. This same year, “Canoe Club” became “Outing Club,” but with canoeing continuing to be a major activity.
1958 has already seen some marked changes in Hoofer organization. From the fall retreat there evolved a new proposal, the chief purpose of which is to encourage a stronger general Hoofer Club. The proposal was passed Sept. 29 by the Council. Because of enthusiastic publicity efforts and well-planned programs, interest in Hoofers has grown considerably. Weekly issues of Hoofprints are again in circulation, and the general Club in providing interesting all-Hoofer events. The Hoofer Store has a fine stock of equipment for sale and for rent. There are now 20 bikes, 43 pairs of skis, about 40 pairs of ski boots, sleeping bags, tents, and all kinds of camping equipment. The Store sells such things as cook kits, ski parkas and other ski items, manuals on numerous activities, goggles, jackets and sweatshirts, and mittens. These are only a few of the many items available to students through the Hoofer Store.
Outing Club now boasts 13 canoes, some for white water, and some for quiet water trips. Sailing Club has replaced the 10 Cubs with 5 fiberglass Interlakes. There are also 9 Teck dingies, also fiberglass.
Some day, if the University permits the Union to move its bowling alley s underground between the Union and the gym, the Union hopes to relocate the scenery and other storage items below the theater lobby in the present alleys, thus opening the way to develop this under-lobby area for boat storage and as equipment workroom, connected by tunnel with the lakeshore and greatly expanding Hoofers quarters.
Hoofers is fun, and with the love of the outdoors as a common bond, Hoofers offers unlimited opportunities for new experiences and for developing new talents and abilities.
Harold C. Bradley History
http://www.housing.wisc.edu/halls/history.php, 7/8/08

Professor Harold Cornelius Bradley was a "champion of the student community", according to UW-Madison's history books, and was a well-respected member of the faculty. He was wealthy of both spirit and finances, contributing actively to the life of undergraduate students and to Medical education. The Bradley Learning Community could not have been named for a better person. Bradley was an early and strong advocate for faculty and student out-of-class interaction, being one of the founders and designers of Hoofers, University Health Services, the Lakeshore Residence Halls, and the Memorial Union's student governance system.
Born in California in 1878, Professor Bradley came to the University of Wisconsin as a junior professor of Biochemistry and Physiology in 1906, having just received his doctorate in Physiological Chemistry from Yale. Then President Charles Van Hise and the founding Dean of the Medical School, Charles R. Bardeen, hired Bradley as one of a team of three faculty to develop a true medical education at the university. In 1907, Professor Bradley initiated instruction in Physiology and Physiological Chemistry. Physiological Chemistry became an independent department in 1921 and was headed by Bradley until 1947. He was extremely outgoing, forthright, and personable, suiting him well to take leadership on campus and in his scientific organizations. (One UW-Madison history book remarked that a testament to his leadership ability was that he garnered local and national recognition for his relatively small department in the shadow of a much stronger and extremely successful Biochemistry department in the College of Agriculture).
Some aspects of Bradley's out-of-class student-faculty interaction could only have occurred when they did: within two years of coming to Madison, Professor Bradley met, fell in love with, and married an undergraduate in her junior year. Mary Josephine Crane became an accomplished organizer and philanthropist in her own right; the fact that she was completely deaf from age two did not appear to slow her down. The bride's father, wealthy Chicago industrialist Charles Crane, was a personal friend of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, then at the end of his career. Crane hired Sullivan to design and build a house for the newlyweds, to occupy all of block 19 of a fancy new western suburb of Madison. This house is the huge and now famous Bradley house in University Heights (its current address is 106 N. Prospect Ave.) The Bradleys' first child, Mary Cornelius, was born in 1909. Seven other children, all boys, were to follow.
Tragedy struck the Bradley family when 6 1/2 year-old Mary contracted spinal meningitis and pneumonia and died in January 1916. Their house clearly contained too many memories for them. In the following 8 months, the Bradleys began selling off the parts of their land not occupied by their house, and in September 1917, they sold the house and the four lots on which it stood to the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity (now called the Sigma Phi Society) for $30,000. As another means to cope with Mary's death, the Bradleys donated $50,000 towards the construction of a memorial hospital to research childhood diseases. The Mary Cornelius Bradley Memorial Hospital still stands today, facing Linden Drive.
Because of his outgoing personality, his strong connection and commitment to undergraduates, and his reputation for saying exactly what was on his mind, Professor Bradley was an effective advocate both for students and with administrators. He envisioned faculty-student interactions that were based on healthy and responsible extracurricular student-focused activities. Professor Bradley had a hand in shaping many of the major student life programs on campus that we now take for granted.
After a 1908 outbreak of typhoid on campus that killed several students, Bradley took up the charge to bring a student health service to campus - a health facility that was not only easily accessible to University students, but that would be tailored specifically to their needs. The University Health Services opened in 1910.
Bradley was an avid skier and outdoors enthusiast, and often took students with him to ski in northern Wisconsin. On one such trip that included then President Glen Frank, Bradley convinced Frank that these outdoor activities should be institutionalized by the University - they were exactly what promoted faculty-student relationships based on mutual interests and responsibility. In 1926, the Hoofers Outing Club was formed.
Professor Bradley was appointed to the 1932 Brown Commission, which studied the growing professional and commercial character of intercollegiate sports. What was specifically a problem at the time was "the relation of intercollegiate athletics to the educational activities and policies of the University and the proper balance to be maintained between the same." The Brown Commission report became a blueprint for UW-Madison athletics for the next 20 years.
President Frank and Professor Bradley shared a vision of student life "integrated" into the values of an undergraduate education. He named Bradley chair of a broad-based committee, whose forty members included alumni as well as faculty, students and administrators, to plan for the governance of the Memorial when it was to open in 1928. Two important issues were to be taken up by this committee: the inclusion of women in the Union activities (up to that point, women were excluded from student unions across the country), and the extent to which students should control the Union's programming and management. Including women fully in Union activities and programming proved to be a relatively easy issue compared to the much more contentious one to determine the role of student governance. But, as Chair of the committee, Bradley's vision to develop opportunities for student leadership and responsibility won out. On May 16, 1928, Professor Bradley presided over a ceremony transferring control of Union affairs to a new student-dominated Union Council. As reported by the Daily Cardinal at that time, this was "an unparalleled advance in student self-government at Wisconsin and nationally."
Professor Bradley played a key role in the development of our lakeshore residence hall system, and led the way to create the innovative house fellow system that is now the norm across the country. In 1922, new dormitories were to be constructed on the lakeshore area of campus, the first student residences to be built in almost 40 years. The regents appointed Bradley to a three-member Dormitories Committee to oversee the physical planning as well as the student programming that these structures would contain.
In the words of the Committee, dormitories "should make student living conditions less costly, more comfortable, more thoroughly decent ... lessen social distinctions in student society ... and help to develop a vigorous and healthy morale." The structures themselves should be built to best promote these ideals, and so the Committee recommended "entry-quadrangle type buildings, each containing several separate structures grouped to enclose a central court, with a separate door for each building of a varied and noninstitutional character. The buildings should be divided into houses ... [each with] a common room to help promote the social unity of the house." These open-quadrangle style dormitories opened as Tripp and Adams Halls in 1926. They were meant to provide a "neighborhood feel" to student living.
Bradley championed the idea that older students, house fellows, should live in the undergraduate houses to provide leadership and peer counseling and to serve as role models to foster well-rounded social and intellectual interests. Bradley fought to have house fellow selection and training "professionalized" - it was to be made uniform across campus, the selection and training was to be done by professionals within the housing system, and house fellows were to be paid a wage commensurate with their duties.
Building on his success as a member of the Dormitories Committee, President Frank appointed Bradley to the All University Commission, to study "the problems of the articulation of the University in its several parts;" its charge being an early incarnation of what we now call "integrative learning" - the blurring of the boundaries between in-class and out-of-class learning and experiences. One program that occupied the Commission was the creation and overseeing of Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College. The "Ex College" had a storied and contentious life. It lasted only 5 years, from 1927 to 1932, but its legacy spread across the country and to this day in the Bradley Learning Community.
Professor Bradley continued his advocacy on behalf of an integrated student life. He was on the Dormitories Committee when the Kronshage houses were built in the late 1930s, and left this committee only as residence halls began to be built as high rises. The Kronshage buildings expanded the vision of university houses providing a comprehensive and active neighborhood for students. By the early 1940's these buildings contained a barbershop, a nonprofit food co-op, a library, and a music room. Students began a newspaper and a radio station, and the dorms themselves were administered, fashioned after Tripp and Adams, by a student-run government. These buildings, like Tripp and Adams before them, embodied the student-driven, active and vibrant neighborhood that Bradley envisioned.
Harold C. Bradley retired from the University in 1949, and died in 1976. By then his vision of a university providing rich opportunities for student leadership and responsibility was largely realized. The programs that he helped create were so much a part of student life that UW-Madison is unimaginable without them. In 1976, the regents honored Professor Bradley's contributions to the university by giving his name to one of the lakeshore residence halls. That the Bradley Learning Community was founded in his hall twenty years later would have made him very proud.

Porter Butts Writing Home About Quetico, Canada
WRITTEN JULY IITH,1927, [not corrected with original]
Mother Dear,
We are home from the North •• It was a rare trip, excitingly adventurous not lonely, not hard, not easy. The fun was in the new country, and in our cooking, and especially in our blessed friend and encyclopedia, of Dr.Bradley,
That man KNOWS everything about outdoors •• He's been on the trail since 16,in the Sierras, in Idaho, cruising near Hudson Bay, gold mining in Alaska, cod fishing off Cape Cod, and he spent his honeymoon, two months, in the Lake country, near our route •• He can pick out the cry of the loon, we heard it often, and tell you it is call an symbol of the Northland, that it is from a bird that swims on the water under water or in the air, that it is a fighter, that it is not very choice to eat Or he can spot a lunar moth in the forest, tell you whether male or female, how many hours old, that it has no mouth, but lives on the cellulose stored in its body during the winter, that it will climb the pine tree where it clings, somehow find a mate in the night, and that in 20 hours its lifetime will be over ••

Or he will explain the habits of the moose, the formation of the rock, the depth of the water, the way to carry a canoe, how to make ka-nick-a nick tobacco, or the weather tomorrow •• He is modest, he is kindly, HE'S A GREAT MAN,and that is why I’m glad I was on this trip.
We crossed Newton into Pipestone Bay (saw a cub bear) and made first camp late in the afternoon, there are few camping spots on account of the denseness of the timber and underbrush •• and the mosquitoes •• the game is to look for a point of land, where the underbrush has been cut out, and then build your fire in a rock crevice, where the winds sweep the mosquitoes away, the tents go up over rocky clearings of doubtful sleeping value, but spruce branches smooth out the bumps.
Water comes up out of the lake, clear and cool, and the supper starts to boil, Spanish compote maybe, or rice and curry gravy, mulligan stew, baked black bass corn bread (except when Dollard was permitted to make biscuits),coffee & apricots after supper a smoke (pipe for Porter),and then 2 hours of Red Saunders, western bullwhackers of the late 19th century, as read by Hal,who can turn out a pretty good one himself •• At 9:30 it begins to get dark, and so the singing starts ••
Now you never heard such singing •• Hal is a baritone,or 2nd bass, of the first order, and knows all the songs and more •• you know already what your son and Johnny can do, even Jack learned how •• Well, you should have heard us 4 horsemen go •• Ask Dad, if he ever knew "Good morning Carrie: Too bed after 68 songs, in sleeping bag, the product of Mary Lou's interest •• Sweet Sleep ••.
Breakfast at 6:30,always bacon, sourdough pancakes,oatmeal,coffee,and prunes.
Tied up by a head wind, lazy, we'd bum around camp for a day, scout up pickerel wall eyed pike, black bass, or lake trout, caught a 26 inch northern pike,15 lbs. Swimming fine, water temperate, wood chopping healthy, and clothes washing always in order. The next day we would load up and "grunt up another lake" as Hal would say, always through squadrons attacking, man hungry skeeters many times. We saw deer, and beaver,and once came close to a bull moose. This is the kind of story to tell about a canoe trip in the Quetico forest, does it sound good?
Net result is sunburn for Jack, new pounds for m3,mustache for Johnny, and happiness for Hal •• Will show you some pictures sometime.

Porter

Wisconsin Hoofers —The Early History by Porter Butts

This interview is with Porter F. Butts, the director of the Wisconsin Union from 1928-1968. This interview is part of a collection of interviews completed by Donna Taylor Hartshorne in Porter Butt’s office in the Memorial Union beginning on August 2, 1979. The complete set of interviews is included in tthe publication The Wisconsin Union—The First 75 Years.

Although Porter Butts was initially interviewed beginning in 1979, these interviews were not transcribed until 1990 by Jim Rogers, who lived with Porter and Mary Louis Butts Porter Butts died at the age of 88 in March of 1991 while still active in his life’s area of specialty and vision —the college union—having helped design the buildings and programs for over 100 unions in the United States and around the world.

A Comprehensive Outdoors Recreation Program — The Wisconsin Hoofers

Well, to the forefront then comes the example of Wisconsin Hoofers, the Union outing club, as a unique and maybe salient example of how this all works in practice and worth spending a few comments on because at Wisconsin the outing club, the Hoofers, is probably now—oh, I’m sure it is now—the largest and most varied outing club on any college campus in America—some 5500 students are participants in the course of a year and pay dues to the Hoofers club in order to participate. They are that eager and that interested.

The other thing that I think I can rightfully say is that the Hoofers are noted for, are responsible for, is the establishment of skiing interest in Wisconsin. This wouldn’t seem possible now with skiing universal in Wisconsin and throughout the country but in the 1920s when the Union came along, there was no such thing as skiing activity except for a few hardy Norwegians and Finns who brought their ski jumping interests and skills with them to the State and practiced on ski jumps in northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan and, indeed, the Norwegian students had built a wooden ski scaffold on Muir Knoll just a stone’s throw from the Union. But this was in the early 1920s and when most interested Norwegian students left the campus, the wooden scaffold fell into disrepair and the jumping activity was not very visible at the time when the Union opened.

In all of Madison you couldn’t buy a pair of skis except for these pine boards with leather toe straps put forth mainly for children to slide down hills with and tumble. There was no such thing as a ski with a binding, for example, or boots to fit the bindings or with poles either for downhill or for cross country skiing. So, one of the first and earliest achievements of Hoofers was to find a source of supply for proper ski equipment via the Dartmouth Outing Club which was flourishing already in New Hampshire at that time and which was acquiring its ski equipment from Switzerland. Through the Dartmouth club we were able to come by some twenty sets of hickory skis with leather thong bindings—it was the only thing available at that time—and boots to fit and poles, and so on. We racked these up, of all places, in the billiard room, for rental. They were checked out in at the billiard desk by students who wanted to give skiing a try and, of course—in accord with the theme that I have just expressed—with instruction in how to do it. How to use skis was a pioneer program for the Union.

Well, going back a bit on how Hoofers came into existence in the first place: I think it’s right to say that as this was due as much as anything to the interest and leadership of Dr. Harold Bradley who was chairman of the Physiological Chemistry Department, member of the Union Council, and had been as the chairman of the Planning Committee for the Union deeply involved in what the Union could do recreationally for the students, and was himself a pioneer skier. He had seven boys who he was training in learning how to ski. But among other things, he, being a close associate of mine and some other folks associated with the Union, led us on a canoe trip in the Quetico forest in Canada one summer—a month-long trip throughout the wilderness by canoe—and in these long evenings we talked together about what a great experience this was out of doors and how satisfying it was to us; but why, we thought, couldn’t this be extended to more people than just us? Why isn’t this the kind of thing students on the campus ought to have the chance to do?

There followed several other kinds of trips including winter ski trips among close friends of ours and Bradley’s, and this notion persisted: “if this is as fun and rewarding as it was—we were very excited about it—why not make it possible for students generally?” This led to a notice posted on the Union bulletin board in 1931, “Please sign here if you’re interested in participating in an outing club with skiing, camping, and canoeing as a prospect.” There were numbers of sign-ups. We still have that original sign-up sheet as part of the Hoofer archives. Then there was a meeting and seven people including Dr. Bradley and his son Charles and myself and two or three others decided it was time to try an outing club.

So, in a modest way we went ahead and formed what is still known as the “Wisconsin Hoofers.” The name Hoofers deriving from a kind of an example of the Dartmouth Outing Club where to be a member of the Dartmouth Outing Club you have to first serve as a “heel.” They called them “Heelers.” This rather promoted the idea that the people who graduated from heels ought to be called “Hoofers.” Hoofers was appropriate enough because it signified that you go there under your own power, “on the hoof,” so to speak, and it gave us the horseshoe as the emblem for a shoulder patch and stationary and all the rest—kind of a symbol of good luck—and you do these things on your own. We had an apprentice system, too, where those who wanted to become Hoofers had to first serve as “heels.” We called them “Heels” and they had to give a certain number of hours to the club over a period of several months and careful record keeping showed how many hours they spent and what they did to qualify themselves as part of the senior group of Hoofers which ran the club and planned the programs, and so on.

Well, in the earliest years the rental of the ski equipment and teaching how to use it was one of the prime evidences of the Hoofer activities, but it wasn’t only that. There were overnight camping trips. We had an arrangement with the State Parks System in which we had the use of the Kirkland Lodge—the old lodge at the south end of Devil’s Lake—which in the wintertime was made available to us for overnight and people would gather up their gear and skis and go out on weekend outings into the near countryside or Devil’s Lake. Anyhow, right along through those first years, the interest flowered. It came on strongly.

The ski jump was sitting there in disrepair and dangerous—it couldn’t be used—and Dr. Bradley himself, an ardent fan of ski jumping as a sport, led a movement to replace the old wooden scaffold with a steel scaffold and I managed to get the Class of 1931 to put up $700 or $800 to buy it. Dr. Bradley added some money of his own and raised some money elsewhere and we managed, finally, to get the wherewithall to design and install a steel ski scaffold. There were very few ski jumping hills or slides in the State. What there were were up in Ishpeming in Michigan and one or two in northern Wisconsin. This prompted the Central U.S. Ski Association to hold its tournaments here including jumpers from the Wisconsin Hoofers.

So, annually we had a ski jumping tournament on Muir Knoll and it was the income—admissions from those tournaments—that gave us the wherewithall to finance much of the rest of the outing program that the Hoofers undertook—plus the rental of the skis out of the billiard room. But the winter weather in Madison brought with it all sorts of painful difficulties in arranging for a ski jumping tournament on the campus because almost inevitably when we picked the most weather proof date, the weather people would tell us “sorry, the snow would melt the week before.” On at least one or two occasions we had to send up north for freight cars of snow. It was then piled up for highway trucks bringing it to Muir Knoll and dump it at the bottom of the hill. Then came the arduous process of carrying the snow up the hill and up this scaffold in bushel baskets. And for this we needed scores and scores of helpers to do it. This is where the Heels came in. It was one of the jobs they performed and so did the skiers themselves and so did anybody else that we could persuade to do the job.

So, despite the weather, somehow we usually got a ski tournament off the ground and jumping took place. We soon found that the students and others were glad to come and watch but they didn’t want to pay so we arranged with the Athletic Department to bring down their canvas fence that they surrounded the football practice field with in the fall and we drilled holes in the ice and up and down the hill and arranged these canvas screens to try to route people through an entrance where they bought a ticket for fifty cents. This succeeded only in part but enough to pay the bills with a little left over.

So, ski jumping came to Madison/southern Wisconsin area because of the Hoofers as did an interest in cross country skiing. It is literally true that the Hoofers, particularly through the leadership of Dr. Bradley, that this came about decades before skiing was a popular sport such as it is now.

Although there is no longer a ski jump on Muir Knoll. When did that cease?

Well, that went on through the years until the late ’40s or early ’50s when the University decided to put a parking area on the bottom of the hill. The ski jumpers landed at the bottom of the ski hill at the lake shore and ran out over the ice on the lake but cars parked on the landing hill outrun meant the end of ski jumping and it was at that time that the Hoofers donated the ski scaffold to the city recreation department to be installed at Hoyt Park—it is still there—and it is the privilege of Hoofers, still, to practice on it and to use it.

I should add that part of the ski jumping history at Wisconsin included at least four Olympic ski jumper members of the U.S. Ski Team. So, it’s a signal of how when you get into something and do it reasonably well, you get some real competence and skill among students that flowers, in this case, into Olympic jumpers. This is partly because Dr. Bradley himself encouraged the Bietila brothers, who were Finnish boys up in Ishpeming, Michigan to come to the University of Wisconsin. They had grown up with ski jumping as children and high school students. He brought them here, housed them, paid their way, so they could get a college education and both the Bietila brothers became members of the U.S. Olympic ski jumping team, and two others did.

One of our original Hoofer founders, Sally Owen Marshall, by name, was a student in 1931, a member of the Union governing board, as well as one of the seven founders of the Wisconsin Hoofers. She came the first woman to jump off the ski slide and this won a lot of press and interested people to come up and see what was this woman doing trying to commit suicide but she didn’t and managed to come off pretty well.

Well, that sounds like a lot on skiing but that isn’t the only thing that was going on in the ’30s. We became aware that in Canada that there were toboggan slides and in our innocence we thought we would try a toboggan slide off of Observatory Hill running down where Elizabeth Waters Hall now is, down to the lakeshore and out onto the lake. We trenched out this slide. We got Oscar Mayer to ice it with their blocks of ice, filling it in with frozen snow. We built a little tool shed at the top with an attendant who charged ten cents a ride and provided the toboggans. This was a thrilling, if I must say hazardous ride, downhill and onto the lake.

Well, Observatory Drive must not have been there?

Observatory Drive was there and this was where the toboggan slide took off from. We were able to do it because we persuaded the Class of 1931 to put up the money for it as their senior class gift to the University. But as some things go and still do, somebody in their off moment decided to burn down the shed where the attendant did his work and had the tools and collected the money, and that ended the toboggan rides for the time being. And before we could reconstruct and try to get going again, the University decided to build Elizabeth Waters Hall which, of course, blocked out the possibility of continuing the toboggan slide all together. And as I must say as I look back on it, I am full of fright as to what might have happened if the toboggan came roaring down that slide and somebody walking along the lake path happened to be stepping over the slide at just that moment; or if the wooden bridge platform that covered the slide had not been lifted out and the toboggan had run into this wooden bridge crossing the chute. It never happened but we weren’t all that fearful in those years of what might have actually happened.

Well, what I was about to say is that as skiing as a prime interest and major activity, it wasn’t the only one in the 1930s. We all began to realize we had a lake as part of the campus as well as land. Here we sat in the unparalleled situation, a Union building right on the lake shore with no access by students to the lake in terms of canoes or sailing or ice boats except as they were willing to pay high prices for rentals at the Bernard boathouse that used to stand behind the gym and that was a modest operation at best.

So, we began to encourage sailing—buying first wooden hull boats which the Hoofers were able to pay for by charging sailing dues and which they kept in repair because the sailors and heels did the work.

Then we realized we had possibilities for general outing activities starting with camping trips not far from the campus, and we saw this mounting interest in whatever new kinds of outing activity the Hoofers undertook. So, when the theater was planned in the mid-thirties, one of the proposals was to create an outing center in the basement of the theater, with a ramp down from the terrace for the purpose of easing down the steps with gear and bikes and skis and toboggans—with washrooms adjacent— for the benefit partly not only of the outers, but also the swimmers off the Union pier, as a sanitation measure. This actually turned out to be one of the main reasons why the federal government gave us a grant to build the theater wing because we were solving the hygiene problem along the lake shore with two small washrooms. And so we stressed this quite a lot when we made our application for the theater. Of course, this was a modest two room facility with lockers so you could change clothes and so forth.

In this outing quarters were to be the ski racks now moved from the billiard room, a work bench for repairing and waxing skis, a canteen or snack bar with a counter where students could get coffee coming in from a wintery trip and a lounge where they could sit around and talk over the day’s adventures or assemble before a trip and gather together before a bus took them out to their next outing place.

In the discussion of the theater wing costs it looked like we were not going to have enough money and so there was a proposal to eliminate the outing clubs. But Dr. Bradley and I held out because we were resolved that this kind of activity and interest needed a home, and in the end this prevailed. It was constructed and is there now. In the far end of the basement under the theater lobby, which was excavated but not floored over, there was an empty open space which we converted into an archery range. We had had archery out on the athletic practice fields but the Athletic Department wasn’t happy with this. They didn’t encourage us to put up our archery butts, the straw backing for the target. By the way, that is where my name comes from, an old-English terminology. The archery butts in England is where the archers were sent forth to practice their bow and arrow work. They were called the butts and apparently that is where my name comes from. So, we had archery going indoors.

Then a mountaineers group developed and they found Devil’s Lake an ideal practice place for rock climbing, getting ready for trips that took them to the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian mountains for high mountain climbing. The hunt club—there was a hunt club sponsored by the Physical Education Department for Women—fell on hard times and lack of interest because the men weren’t included. Also, they ran out of stable space with the growth of Shorewood Hills. There was a stable in Shorewood Hills. So the hunt club joined the Hoofers and we had a Hoofer Riding Club. A Hoofer horse show became an annual event out at the Stock Pavilion that attracted horse riders/competitors from all over the middle west. It was a big thing and made some money. There were stables and fields that were brought into the picture. So riding became an on-going thing. The Sailing Club added new types of boats and now got up to around twenty, something like that.

The weekend trips multiplied. There were sign-up sheets down in the outing quarters for at least two and sometimes three or more trips. This was going on through the late ’30s and the ’40s and the trips began to go really quite far afield especially at Christmas holiday time and spring recess. There were trips to the Colorado Mountains, trips to the British Columbia mountains, canoe trips to Canada lakes— The Quetico—and down the Tennessee River.

At that time, also, we took on the old WAA (that’s the Women’s Athletic Association) cottage out in Shorewood Hills which they had used as an outing cottage. It is on the lake shore just below Eagle Heights and we converted that into a rest stop for canoers and sailors and hikers and bikers. One of the favorite Hoofer occasions was an annual hike around Lake Mendota—see who could make the twenty-five to twenty-six miles in the fastest time. We installed a resident couple who lived there and were always there as host when groups showed up on their way hiking or just wanting a short weekend retreat for picnics and maybe softball, or for canoeists who wanted to make a stop before they came back to the Union. This went on into the late ’40s; I guess it was around then. At this time, however, automobiles became very prevalent on the campus which was now after the war. There were no automobiles moving during the war and very few before the war but with the end of the war and the straightening up of the economic situation, student cars became fairly prevalent, at least by the ’50s and so the student instinct was to go far afield to start their outing, their camping trip, or their canoe trip, or their mountain climbing, and so on. So, the WAA cottage—the “Blackhawk Lodge” as we called it because it was right near Blackhawk cave, with Blackhawk being the chief who was supposed to have hidden out there on his retreat across this port of the country in face of the military pursuing him. Blackhawk Lodge was just wasn’t interesting enough. It wasn’t enough of an adventure and we closed that out.

But we did some other things. We developed a downhill skiing area out near Cross Plains with a rope tow. Downhill skiing was just not beginning to mature as an interest among students and others. So, we found ourselves spreading in all kinds of directions with the corollary student interest. Each of these interest groups formed a sub-club of its own. It was the Outing Club, the Mountaineering Club, the Archery Club, the Riding Club, the Sailing Club, and so on, but they were all brought together in a federation under the banner of the Hoofer name. The head of each of these subgroups was on the Hoofer Central Council to determine policy and promote the cause of outdoor recreation generally. Well, caving got into the picture too.

All through this whole multiple development, teaching how to do it was central. The sailors produced very extensive manuals on sailing and a student had to pass a land test first to qualify to take out a sailboat. This was for safety reasons and to teach him how to be a good sailor so that he would want to come back. He would take satisfaction in what he was doing. The canoers developed manuals on the rivers of northern Wisconsin: where the rapids were, what seasons to avoid low water or too high water, and so on. There were all kinds of instructor recruiting programs going with the older sailors or older canoeists who had been through the mill signing up as instructors; and because of their time devoted teaching newcomers on how to do it, they were given sailing privileges without charge.

And, of course, in the process we had employed by now a full-time outing director. We started in the late ’30s with a half-time director but it soon turned out that this was, indeed, a full-time job. He, in turn, was an experienced outer and instructor himself and worked with the student instructors.

As we went along the program flowered and kept on flowering. There were busloads to ski resorts on long weekends, between sessions, and Christmas time—a couple of hundred students at a time by bus to northern Wisconsin or to a northern Michigan ski resort. There were charter ski trips organized overseas to Switzerland, to France—by plane, of course. There were numerous charters by bus to Aspen, and to Vail and to the other Colorado ski resorts.

We gradually acquired more boats. Some of them were gifts. We organized intercollegiate regattas and again the Wisconsin sailors got good enough so that one or two of them became Olympic sailors. We still have a Hoofer graduate who is the champion single-handed sailor of the U.S. right now.

Who is that?

His name is Peter Barrett and is over at Milwaukee running a sail shop.

The whitewater canoeing came on strong. We started renting bikes. Our facilities started out just with the basement of the old president’s house which is where the theater now stands but as I have mentioned, we got our sizeable outing quarters when the theater was built plus an archery range plus this auxiliary lodge; Blackhawk Lodge, out on Lake Mendota shore plus the downhill skiing at Cross Plains.

Then there came the time when there was a strong move on to develop what we called an “Outdoor Union” out at Halverson’s Park which was privately owned adjacent to Governor Dodge Park out at Dodgeville and our governing board and the Hoofers were strong for this. It was about a 500 acre area with rock out crops for rock climbing; deep valleys; four or five ponds for fishing, swimming; the horse riding stable of Governor Dodge Park next door and it looked like the kind of a place where we could encourage weekend outings by student families or by student organizations who wanted weekend retreats for conference purposes, and so on, with a view to building cabins and a central dining hall and gathering place and at the same time, be a demonstration center for the camp and resort people of Wisconsin for institute symposiums and conferences in a resort setting led by university environmental studies group and an extension staff on how best to develop a public camp site or a resort—what to do and what not to do and so on.

It had, we thought, a lot of potential in these several directions. It was only forty miles away. You could get there in an hour —spectacular scenery, deep valleys, and right up against Governor Dodge Park which is something over 5,000 acres and being a State institution we had established that we could have certain mutual privileges and access to the Governor Dodge trails for skiing in the winter, and so on. The Memorial Union trustees had the money to take an option on it and to buy it. So, we got a price on this area—$135,000—and took it to Chancellor Fleming who thought it was a great idea and encouraged us; and we were in the middle of negotiations to take an option on this when we got the news from President Harrington that he didn’t think it was a very good idea because if the legislature, which was then in session, heard that the land was being bought for University purposes forty miles from the campus at the time when the University was begging for money to build buildings on the campus, it would be fatal to the University’s requests even though there was no State money involved. We were going to buy this through the gift money of the Memorial Union Trustees and make it as a gift to the University but we were turned down. About five weeks later Halverson’s Park was sold to the Milwaukee Labor Union for $325,000.

Well, we began to look for more modest and alternate areas where we could do something of the same thing and for some reason, the report of our governing board meeting on this got printed in the Milwaukee Journal. I got a telephone call from Milwaukee saying “We saw that you are interested in an outing area for the University and we might have the kind of thing you might like.” Well, I said “Where is it?” This was all over the phone. “Well, it’s about so and so and so and so up in Iowa County.” I said, “Does it happen to be off of County ZZ?” “Yeah.” “Is it a place that used to be called Halverson’s Park.” “Yes.” “Well, what is your asking price on it?” “$350,000.” And we could have had it for $135,000 five or six weeks before. It was ultimately sold to the State Park Department for, I think it was, $285,000, or something like that, and is now part of Governor Dodge Park. So we lost it. I thought while I was mentioning all of our achievements and successes I might mention one that didn’t succeed.

Well, at about the same time, however, we were doing something about expanding the outing quarters here at the Union. Again, with the sailing just zooming and canoeing, particularly kayak, whitewater excursions coming on strong and the crew house going out. (The crew house was part of the boathouse that Bernard ran as a boat rental agency back of the gym and the crew house occupied about half of that. The crew was relocated up near the dormitories and Bernard was growing old and was anxious to get out of the rental business and not doing much with it anyhow, and the University was developing the Alumni House and wanted to dispose of the boat house.) . . .

This would have been in the ’60s, wouldn’t it?

Yes, I think so. The boat house was falling apart anyhow in the early ’60s. So, we thought, well maybe this is the time when maybe we should go into full force as a lakeshore boat center, and did. The area I called the archery range was also a place where we stored theater scenery. The scenery was moved out. Archery disappeared by this time and the dirt floor was floored over and compartments were made for each of our outing clubs with wire mesh caging to keep their gear and supplies under protection. A paint shop for repainting boats or fiberglassing boats was installed with a very important exhaust fan and filtering arrangement so that the paint and fiberglass fumes would dissipate and not be a hazard and, plus, a general work and repair center.

Then we extended the area on out toward the lakeshore under what you now see as a open plaza deck that almost reaches the lakeshore. This provides a whole new very large center for boat storage and canoe storage and sail drying and repair work and kayak building. Students built kayaks there right along. They get a kit for maybe $25 or $30 and we provide the space and the wherewithall for their own work in building a fiberglass kayak for themselves. At the beginning we rented bikes there. We had twenty bikes to rent. This would be unbelievable now but hardly any student had a bike, even in the early ’60s. So we rented bikes to students who wanted to bike out to Picnic Point or around the lake, or wherever.

Well, now there are more than 10,000, 12,000 or 15,000 bikes on the campus privately owned but this was a very valuable resource in the beginning to be able to rent a bike and go somewhere along the University pathways for an outing. In Union color sound film done in the early ’50s, ’54 I guess it is, one of the scenes is this group, about a dozen or fifteen people, taking off on bikes over Observatory Hill. It was unheard of before then. So, this boat center got built and is now the focus of all of our activity and is due, we hope, for some expansion down the lakeshore towards the Limnology building because the Hoofers now have something more than 80 boats of all kinds of sizes, some of them gifts, some of then they purchase through their dues. But they’ve had all sorts of troubles over the years with their temporary wooden docking and where the boats have been stored on shore because the wind and the waves when a storm has come up have wrecked the wooden docks and torn loose some of the boats and destroyed them and left very considerable damage. So this whole area between the outing center at the theater, the lake frontage and down to the Limnology building is scheduled for a permanent waterside boat storage area and a park like area with planting and trees and benches and seating.

Will there be any kind of a building?

No. This is all shoreline development and partly to preserve the shore which has gone to pieces with wave action—it began to erode. And this is a current project which also involves taking the second story off the old Lake Lab that hasn’t been used for years but which hides the view from the Park Street turnaround out over the lake towards Picnic Point and turning that into an open deck as a kind of overlook for the public. And this is in the works now and with the Hoofers putting upwards of $55,000 into it. Two classes have made it their fifty year class gift for this purpose and the Legislature has added $75,000 and the Brittingham Fund has come up with some money.

The Union sponsorship of the Hoofers Club represented a good and long symbiotic relationship for most of the years since the founding of the Hoofers. It has gone on now for almost fifty years but there was one period of time when one of our young instructors in the faculty who was an ardent sailor himself and active in the Hoofer Sailing Club, in fact, considered himself a self-appointed sailing coach, thought it was arduous and unfair that the Union should be taking a use fee for the use of all this vast facility that was devoted to the Hoofers, and therefore proposed that the Hoofers move out, that they cut their ties with the Union and set up shop somewhere else on the lakeshore to be free of what he thought of as Union imposition on the Hoofers, because of these charges.

Well, he got a certain following among sailors, particularly undergraduates who didn’t want to spend any more money than they needed to. So, there was a long back and forth between the Union governing board—Council—and this chap and his supporters on “why a use fee?” Well, the rationale for a use fee, of course, was that the Union had invested $300,000 to $400,000 in this facility, that we had provided staffing for it, all of the support services in terms of back-up financing when needed, use of the workshop, poster making, duplicating room for duplicating work, and so on and so on. But the main, expenses, of course, were the maintenance of this very large area and the staffing of it, and since the Hoofers were charging for the use of boats—a modest fee to be sure. You know the old Bernard Boathouse people used to charge five dollars an hour when five dollars was five dollars, which would be equivalent to about fifteen dollars an hour now, and the Hoofers for fifteen dollars gave a whole summer of sailing privileges. So, it wasn’t exactly an expensive sport. But since we had built this area through gift money and other student fees and were maintaining it all with student fees, we felt that the students who got the specific use of the area and benefits as over against students who were not sailors, that a portion of their fee, (I think it was ten percent or fifteen percent of their income) ought to come back to the Union as a partial offset, a very modest offset, to what the Union was putting into it. And this was the basis of their annoyance and their aggravation and their reason for a long series of negotiations on what to do about it.

Well, for one thing, the sailors thought they owned the boats because their fees had paid for them but, in fact, all the Hoofer monies by University requirements are also the Union monies, so the boats were all on the University inventory as owned by the University and it’s department, the Union. Well, there was a big argument of who owned the boats. The University administration, of course, made it clear that the boats were part of the official University inventory and couldn’t be moved to another location. What’s more, there wasn’t any other location anybody could provide and it was, of course, just out of the question for even the most eager sailors to find the wherewithall to build new docks and new boat storage area, new shelters, and acquire new boats.

So once this chap, this particular chap disappeared from the scene because he later got married and was preoccupied with that and his research projects, the whole thing eased off but there were still questions at budget-making time about the rationale of this use fee. There has been a kind of a steady relationship in recent years and ever since.

The use fee still continues?

Yes. I can’t tell you exactly what it is now. They’ve renegotiated it and it’s some new formula that I have not been aware of since I left the directorship.

There were, of course, the usual difficulties one encounters with student organizations in caretaking of the premises. There were certain established closing times required by the timing for the entire Union building, and we had some of the independent Hoofer members who didn’t want to leave at that time and resisted the closing hour rule, or they wanted to come early before the quarters were open. And we had established that the quarters were only open when the Hoofer outing director or Union staff member or his substitute was there, for obvious reasons of avoiding theft of all this equipment which could easily be stolen if not watched over. And there were problems of vandalism, of fires being built without the flue open and the room smoked up, or fires left going without a screen, with sparks which could have ignited nearby rugs or furnishings. And so we were on the track, as we were with all the other departments of the Union, of having any facilities under a supervisor’s eye for safety reasons, for conduct reasons, and so on.

This was resisted by some members of the Hoofers and we had to iron out these complaints. I think, as I recall, one of the solutions was to authorize certain members of the Hoofer Council or club heads to be supervisors and be responsible for safe keeping and orderliness of the quarters when the outing director himself could not be there. But there were, at times, tensions over this and complaints, and complaints both ways. We would get night reports from our night engineer who made the rounds of doors left open, lights left on, the fire still burning or conduct cases and so on which led to these conferences.

But on the whole, this has been over the years minimal, and the Hoofers, in contrast to most student organizations, have been thoughtful and reliable and willing workers. And it is notable that in the days of the big protests and demonstrations on the campus in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when all the public attention was drawn to the extremists who were out demonstrating on the streets and damaging University property and confronting administrators, and so on, and who were sure the world needed them to be saved and arousing antagonism among alumni and the public and turning off the faculty—it seemed to be the dominant student mood at the time and this thing was always referred to but right along all this the Hoofers were back here in the outing quarters putting in hours and hours of volunteer time preparing their equipment, teaching the students the job, numbers expanding, more outings developing, the complete opposite of the radical extremism. In other words, here is the other side of the coin, the normal, probably majority, student body in operation as evidence by their will and willingness to do for themselves and to be contributors rather than obstructors. They never joined in these demonstrations or protests. They just waved them aside and went on about their business which well might have been organizing a ski trip to Vail, Colorado, for a couple hundred students which were completely led, organized, and financed by students without accidents, without problems.

So, it has been overall a very rewarding development in the Union’s history in terms of what we are trying to do and that is mainly expand student interests wherever they may lead us. That kind of informal recreation and learning that the Union has tried to foster , and which we believed can and should also take place outside a building as well as inside—not just a physical place with a wall around it where things only happen inside. Rather, we try for a comprehensive plan for the recreational and cultural life of the student body.

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UW-Madison: Archives and Records Management Services
History & Exhibits
ARMS Home < Exhibits Home < Hoofers Timeline
Early Hoofers History
http://archives.library.wisc.edu/uw-archives/exhibits/hoofers/1920s.html

Compiled by Chris Hartman