In 2007 my husband and I visited the original property, located at a big bend in the road, where the family settled in 1850. To the left, the road leads uphill to the site of the stone house.

The cube-shaped stone house was built in the late 1850’s and stayed in the family for about 100 years.

 

 

And here is how it looked in 2007. In 2002 the property was purchased by the National Park Service as an interpretive site along the 1200 mile Ice Age National Scenic Trail.

History of the stone house

In February 1851, the U.S. Government issued a patent for the parcel to Henry Morton, who in turn sold the property in April 1857 to Richard Lowe. Thereafter, the land remained in the Lowe family, though at times identified with son-in-laws or other Lowe relatives with different last names. Aldrew Lowe purchased the property in 1917, and he and his wife Laura and daughter Joyce lived there until 1936 when the father and daughter (Laura by then deceased) moved to Madison. The Lowes then rented out the farm until 1952 when Aldrew sold the property to Dr. James and Jane Wilkie, who later sold it to the National Park Service.

The original two-story house, which features walls of native stone blocks 18″ thick and 10’x10′ hand hewn-oak beams in the basement, was probably constructed in the 1860s. The original house featured a living room and eat-in kitchen on the first floor and three bedrooms on the second. The house had no indoor plumbing and during the early years of the last century the interior of the house was lit – according to Joyce Lowe – with carbide lights.

William Kaesner (1906-1995), a prominent Madison architect, designed the addition and other modifications to the property undertaken soon after the Wilkies acquired this property in 1952. 

A front porch on the north side of the house, reportedly built by Aldrew Lowe and visible in vintage Lowe family photos, was removed and other history elements altered as part of the work carried out by the Wilkies beginning in 1952. A silo near the barn, bearing the name “A.E. Lowe” and “1919” that identify the then current owner and date of construction, was retained, while an old log cabin on the property – a structure that appears in photos taken during April 1952 – presumably was torn down or moved to another location.The property was sold to the National Park Service in 2007 for use as an Ice Age National Scenic Trail Interpretive Site. Today it is part of the Cross Plains State Park, a part of the larger Ice Age Complex, a partnership project of public lands cooperatively managed by the Wisconsin DNR, National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dane County Land and Water Resources Department and the nonprofit Ice Age Trail Alliance (IATA).

The cool, shaded gorge is 100 feet deep with limestone rock outcroppings and spring flowers such as bloodroot and hepatica. An igneous rock of volcanic origin is perched on top of one of the limestone outcrops. Now known as the Wilkie Gorge National Scientific Reserve, it is where the glacier stopped its progress south. The area represents the interface of glaciated landscapes on one side of the Moraine and unglaciated bedrock landscapes on the oder side. Oak savanna oak forests, wetlands and prairies cover the area. 

Plat map location: Dane County, Wisconsin. Township 7N Range 7E Sections 13 & 14.

The address is 8075 Old Sauk Road, Cross Plains, Wisconsin

Cross Plains State Park website is: dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/parks/crossplains. Their cover photo shows the old Lowe house and the Wilkie addition.