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Our History

In late 2012, John Eich and Karen Corbeill were separately working on creating more opportunities for makers in Madison. Trent Miller from the public library's Bubbler Program connected them, and the rest, as they say, is Creational Mythos.

In early 2013, they created MadCity Makers, a social club for makers that met in public libraries and coffee shops. They taught a summer series of workshops at libraries, from Cigar Box Guitars and Little Free Libraries to Spin Art and Blinky Bugs. They hosted a welding workshop out of John's garage. Arduino and Raspberry Pi's were explored, knitting and crochet circles were held, and a MeetUp Group was founded.

After a time, it felt like the group needed a space to call our own, to share tools and host activities that libraries aren't set up to handle. Like, um, Firenados. Soldering and welding. Hack and Tells.

So we approached James Pittman and JT Smith to create a board, filed paperwork to incorporate, and began looking at spaces around town. We put out a public call to discuss it, and Kim Roberts of Evolution Arts Collective came and offered EAC's warehouse as a 'convertible space', 900 sq feet. We opened our doors on June 1st, 2014 and the four of us pledged membership dues! Our membership and tools have been zooming upwards ever since.

Within a year we were bursting at the seams of the 900 sq ft space, and started looking for larger buildings. After some dead ends, we found a great new space on Robertson Road, with 3,400 sq feet, a separate room for “clean” projects (like electronics and crafts), and lots of parking. Done! We moved in on July 1st, 2015, to what felt like a vast, empty space.

In November of 2015, the IRS recognized us as a 501( c) 3.

After three years in that “immense space”, every tool area was bursting at the seams, members were flowing around each other as they built things, and we were scratching our heads to fit new tools. So we started looking again, and after a lengthy search found a fabulous building on the former Oscar Mayer site. With 14,000 sq feet, a separate room for woodworking (dust *cough cough*), and a great location, it was everything we'd hoped for! In May of 2019 we started moving in, with a grand opening on Sep 21, 2019. Then, in December 2021 we expanded into an adjacent part of the building, increasing the size to over 21,000 sq feet!

history.txt · Last modified: 2023/03/09 19:01 by Mark Pickard