Nakoma, Madison, Wisconsin

Nakoma is a neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin. It includes custom houses mostly dating from the first half of the 20th century, many in the Tudor Style; tree-lined streets with sidewalks; the Thoreau School; the earliest inn in the city; and the Nakoma Golf Club. It borders the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, accessible by foot, which includes a spring fed duck pond featuring mallard ducks, immediately adjacent to the eastern entry to the neighborhood. Entries to the neighborhood are decorated with prairie stone walls and an occasional decorative guard house. Street names have Native American themes, such as Manitou Way, Cherokee Drive, and many others. The neighborhood features many social events exclusively for residents, such as twelfth night, tulip dinner, and a fourth of july party at Thoreau. The neighborhood is divided into several areas with the names of Indian nations corresponding to streets in the area. These areas were formerly known as "tribes" and the heads of each tribe would wear stereotyped headdresses similar to ones worn by the plains Indians. However, this has since changed and there is no perceivable racism in the neighborhood's structure.