Ancient Rock of Many Names
Whether driving by it daily, exploring its crevices as children, or sitting on a hillside bench in Donald Park, no one can ignore the imposing presence of the natural stone monument at the corner of Town Hall Road and Highway 92, known today as Donald Rock.
This large St. Peter’s sandstone formation emerged over more than 450 million years, through exposure to the elements and erosion, while at least two glaciations (22,000 and 250,000 years ago) by chance missed this Driftless Area of Wisconsin. Easily seen from a distance protruding from the prairie landscape, it has captured human attention since prehistoric times.
Pre-European settlements have been identified near Donald Rock, including possible camps or village sites and more than one potential worksite apparently used for making stone implements. Rock art that precedes even the presence here of the Ho-Chunk Indians can also be found. Numerous relics discovered in farm fields and early mappings of mounds in the valley provide further evidence of extensive pre-European activity in the shadow of this impressive monument. Descendants of early area settlers wrote of a Ho-Chunk family that annually camped at nearby Malone Valley as late as the 1930s.
We can only imagine all the names that early inhabitants gave this unique and beautiful rock formation. However, we do find several historic names starting in the 19th century, depending on who owned the land or what practical use people made of the attraction.
In 1876, Andrew L. Dahl, a photographer from DeForest, took the first known photo of this rock formation with a special 3-D camera. Dahl traveled through the area photographing settlers and places of interest to sell as stereoscope cards, which were popular at the time. His captions dubbed the outcropping “Preacher’s Cap,” as well as “McCord’s Rock,” after Elihu K. McCord, owner of the farm where the rock was situated. When commercial post cards come into popularity after the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the rock was a natural subject to target. Some early postcard views list the monument as “Vernon Valley Rock” or “Picture Rock,” appropriately named as many picnickers posed there for photos, as evidenced in the Society’s photographic collections.
Shortly after Mt.Vernon mill owner John Jones married the widowed Ellen Sweet Donald, the couple acquired the McCord farm, then belonging to Isaac G. Brader, along with its imposing monument. This acquisition increased the couple’s property holdings to three contiguous farms running along the highway. Upon Mr. Jones’s death in the spring of 1897, his stepson, John S. Donald, assumed operation of the farms. Donald family members referred to the natural wonder on his newly acquired property as “Big Rock.” Their neighbors called it “Donald’s Rock.” Locals and visitors named a pool of water that often formed in a natural basin at the top of the rock the “Devil’s Wash Basin.”
The current name of “Donald Rock” was formalized in 1954 when John S. Donald’s widow, Vona, gave the rock and its three-acre site to the State of Wisconsin for use as a wayside, in memory of her late husband, who had long wished for its preservation. Three hundred attended the dedication on June 27, 1954.
The wayside became popular – too popular. Vandals made off with the bronze marker and tossed the site’s picnic tables from its upper elevation. Revelers strewed beer cans and liquor bottles throughout its woods. The State eventually shut down the wayside. Today, however, as the northernmost section of Dane County’s 700-acre Donald Park, formed in the final few years of the 20th Century and opened to the public in 2002, this natural monument enjoys a more carefully protected status