Built in 1870, The J.R. Mears House stood as a stately family residence in a delightful Madison neighborhood.
That is, until college happened.
The need for student housing grew along with the university, a spreading contagion that soon took hold of the houses nearest campus.
One by one, abodes like the Mears Home were repartitioned, rewired and retrofitted with internet connections, readied for a new career housing rowdy herds of undergraduates.
Derelict couches and rusting bikes cram the once-comfortable porches. Dining rooms formerly host to cozy family dinners now provide the setting for raucous wop parties and makeshift shared bedrooms.
Essentially, everything is as it should be.
See what the neighborhood looked like before the college kids moved in with the pictures below:
Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society
Katie Cooney/The Badger Herald
