Bascom Hill forms the historic core of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, its quadrangle facing the State Capitol at the far end of State Street. You’re at the end of State Street opposite the Wisconsin State Capitol, on ground named for John Bascom, a former president of the university. The hill is crowned by Bascom Hall, the campus’s main administration building, and near its main entrance sits a statue of President Abraham Lincoln.
This was the site of the university’s first building: North Hall, constructed here in 1851 and still in use by the Department of Political Science. The second building, South Hall, was built in 1855 and today houses the administration of the University of Wisconsin College of Letters and Science. In 1974 this whole area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Bascom Hill Historic District.
The district spans more than the quadrangle itself, including historic buildings ranging from the Red Gym to the Wisconsin Historical Society building to the Carillon Tower — what the NRHP nomination calls "the most historic cluster of institutional buildings in Wisconsin. North Hall has held this ground since 1851, South Hall since 1855, and Bascom Hall still crowns the slope with Lincoln's statue near its main entrance.