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March 29, 2005
UW-Madison parties for Hamline’s sesquicentennial: Celebration ends with citywide keg stands, burned-out cop cars
Wisconsin’s biggest university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, finished up its celebration of Minnesota’s oldest university č Hamline.
“Whoooo, Hamline rocks! Happy birthday, little buddy!” said A.J. Johnson on State Street during the near-riotous celebration.
Madison is known for its prestigious academics and notorious party scene. Each year, tens of thousands of people from colleges all around the Midwest and the country flock to Madison for the country’s largest Halloween celebration, where every Halloween night inevtiably ends in some sort of riot. Madison is also known for its spring celebration on Miflin Street, known simply as Miflin.
But the past year has been spent celebrating Hamline’s 150 years of existence. The celebration started last March with fireworks and a parade down State Street. Large house parties sprung up throughout the city, along with an official school-sanctioned dance.
The celebration was the brainchild of Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle and Madison mayor Dave
Cieslewicz. After years of being nearly destroyed by the school’s Halloween parties, both Doyle and
Cieslewciz agreed that students from other regional schools should stay home. At a press conference last year, Doyle and Cieslewciz announced that, instead of students coming to Madison, Madison students would hold parties and celebrations for other schools.
“From here on out, we will do your partying for you. This way you all can stay home, rest and maybe get some homework done, while we party it up,” Doyle said.
“Yeah, so stay home, read a book, and we will do the beer bong for you,” Cieslewciz added.
Madison’s yearlong Hamline party ended with massive keg parties spread throughout the city. Local brewers donated kegs free of charge to all the houses on Miflin Street.
Amelia Goldstein lives on Miflin and hosted one of the parties.
“I don’t even know where Hamline is,” she said, taking a pull from a fifth of whiskey. “But hell, they’re 150 years old, man! That’s really old! You want a keg stand?”
Around 3 a.m. Monday morning, the party spread to State Street, which resembled a huge human river, with people flowing from one end of the street to the other. Along the way, you could hear Hamline’s fight song. Some people were even dressed in some sort of period dress meant too look like Bishop Leonidas Hamline.
“The bishop was the man! I’ll celebrate his founding of Hamline all year long!” said Jon Reilly, a first-year dressed up in Bishop period gear.
By 4:15 am, the mounted police showed up to disperse the crowd. Slowly, the crowd began to chant “Hamline!” in defiance. In less than five minutes, all of State Street was chanting the name of Minnesota’s first university. Police threatened the crowd with tear gas, and reminded the crowd that Hamline is now 151 years old, and the celebration is over. Dejected looks covered many of the partygoers’ faces, and slowly they bowed their heads and walked home.
Posted by msveum at March 29, 2005 01:02 PM
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