Loraine

It would have been nearly impossible to predict, but by the early 1920's Madison had taken over as the state's top spot for visiting conventions over its larger sister city Milwaukee.  Located in between Chicago and Milwaukee on the southern end and Minneapolis to the north, Madison found ways to attract visitors through its progressive planning, blooming arts and entertainment scene and, as always, its purposefully preserved natural beauty.  This newfound interest in the small outpost city, can be best evidenced by parallel growth in its early hotel industry.  "Never in Madison's history were so many hotel rooms added in such a short time.  In just four months in 1924 Madison's Capitol Square suddenly boasted 450 new hotel rooms.

The million-dollar 25-room Loraine Hotel opened in May, and the $300,000, 200-room Belmont Hotel opened in September.  Business at the Loraine was so good that its owners added 150 rooms just a year after it opened."  Only a few short decades after its very inception, Madison, in many ways as a result of the inexhaustible work from a trio of key leaders  – Doty, Olin, and John Nolen, famous city-planner) – had

John Nolen, recruited by John Olin to plan Madison, was renown 
for his abilities in the U.S.

become a known destination nation-wide.  Early patronage by the likes of Mae West, Ethel Barrymore, Harry Truman stayed at the Loraine.  Frank Lloyd Wright himself, the UW-Madison Alum. and dreamer for the eventual Monona Terrace, stayed at the hotel, stranded in a snowstorm in 1957.  At the time of being built, the Loraine became a subject of controversy because of its projected height.  Nolen, in his 1909 all-encompassing plan for the city of Madison, desired for there to be a height restriction on all future building in the city so that the prestigious state capitol

building would never be overshadowed by sure-to-come skyscrapers.  The initial legal decision went against this view-preserving stance because such actions should only be struck, the courts said, if a safety and health issue was at stake.  "Anti skyscraper forces appealed the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and won.  Since 1924 all buildings have conformed to the height restrictions.  Thanks to Nolen and his disciples, the dome of Wisconsin's capitol will forever dominate the Madison skyline, a rare but dramatic instance in which beauty triumphed over business."  Today, the Loraine still stands as business office space and luxury condominiums.  The Capitol dominates the city skyline from every observable angle.