Your Daily Guide

🎤 Mad Lit Concert Series Goes Quiet in 2026

• The popular Mad Lit downtown summer concert series has been cancelled this year due to a lack of funding. The series was created in 2021 by rapper and educator Rob Dz, aka Rob Franklin, and the Urban Community Action Network to showcase hip-hop musicians and other Black and brown artists in Madison.
• Last year, the series drew 12,000 people to four downtown concerts. But due to a change in how the city administers grants, Mad Lit is no longer eligible for the $30,000 in funding that financed it before.
• The organizers are looking for new funding to bring Mad Lit back in 2027. In the meantime, Rob Dz will be performing with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra as part of Concerts on the Square on July 1. [Isthmus, WCO]

🚆 Wisconsin Applies For Federal Grant to Bring Amtrak to Madison

• The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has applied for a federal grant to expand Amtrak’s Hiawatha train service, including to Madison.
• The proposal to the U.S. Department of Transportation would expand two daily Chicago-to-Milwaukee rail lines to Madison, Watertown and Pewaukee using existing rail infrastructure.
• The grants are expected to be administered in the next few months. If all goes smoothly, Amtrak wants to start rail service to Madison in 2030, and a local developer is looking to add a train station to the former State Human Services Building downtown. [WKOW, WPR]

🚲 New Bike Path Connects Madison to Sun Prairie

• The new Tancho Drive path connection is only a half-mile long, but will mean a lot to Madison-area cyclists. The path is the final piece of the puzzle that connects Madison to Sun Prairie on paved paths.
• Sun Prairie and Madison officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday for the path, which will allow cyclists to avoid the heavy traffic on American Parkway. Instead they can bike on Tencho through Northeast Park and up to Goodman Path in Sun Prairie. [City of Madison]

History buffs have been fascinated by the ancient dugout canoes that have been discovered in Lake Mendota. On the City Cast Madison podcast today, host Bianca Martin talks to Wisconsin Maritime Archaeologist Tamara Thomsen, who first discovered the historic artifacts. Plus, Bianca and producer Jade Iseri-Ramos talk about a new gift from the Ho-Chunk Nation that will help people learn about dug-out canoes up close.

For all of their majesty, many ships have met their demise in the Great Lakes — experts estimate there have been as many as 10,000 and the vast majority of them remain undiscovered. It’s no wonder there’s so much excitement whenever a new shipwreck is discovered, like the lot of ancient canoes found in Lake Mendota in 2025. Let’s put on our captain hats and dive into some of the most famous shipwrecks found in Wisconsin waterways.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

The Fitzgerald was built in 1958 and was once the longest ship to navigate the Great Lakes. For three months in 1959, the ship was docked in its homeport of Milwaukee and open to the public while awaiting a steelworker’s strike. It was the only time the Fitzgerald visited Milwaukee before sinking during a severe storm on Nov. 10, 1975. It’s still the most notorious shipwreck in the Great Lakes 50 years later.

The radius around the shipwreck is protected by the Ontario Heritage Act (since it sank on the Canadian Side of the lake) and a number of special archeological permits are required to go near it. It was also immortalized in a namesake song by Gordon Lightfoot.

SS Bannockburn

The vastness of the water makes it difficult to find even the largest ships, and that’s exactly what happened to the 244-foot Canadian freight steamer Bannockburn when it vanished on Nov. 21, 1902 while transporting wheat. The ship is said to have sailed through a crack in the lake and the ghostship lore has only grown into what is now called “The Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes.”

Gallinipper

The Gallinipper has the distinction of being Wisconsin’s oldest known shipwreck, with ties to the fur trade and early settlement. It was originally built in 1832 as the Nancy Dousman, exchanged ownership a handful of times, and eventually sank near Cleveland, Wisconsin in 1851. Most notably, the vessel did not immediately sink after hitting a storm. Efforts were made to recover it to no avail.

The wreckage was discovered by a commercial fisherman in 1994, but was only confirmed as the Gallinipper in 2009.

Frank D. Barker

Maritime archeologists and scientists aren’t the only ones who find shipwrecks. Boat tour guide Matt Olson discovered a “dark blob” while looking at satellite images of Rowleys Bay in 2025. Olson went to investigate with sonar and a GoPro camera and discovered the remains of a massive vessel. He reported it to the Wisconsin Historical Society and archeologists confirmed the Barker had been found 138 years after its wreckage.

If you, too, get lucky and come across a shipwreck, you can report it to the Wisconsin Historical Society hotline: acheologists@wisconsinhistory.org.

Happy hunting!