Now Starring at the Cow Palace
The UW Stock Pavilion was once a go-to spot for speakers and musicians.
Vice presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey held the spotlight at the Stock Pavilion, a venue valued for its un-barn-like acoustics. UW Archives
Wisconsin: it’s where politics and cattle mix.
Look closely at this Stock Pavilion photo, and you’ll see the generous forehead of Senator Hubert Humphrey as he addresses a packed crowd. It was taken in October 1964, and Humphrey was nearing the culmination of his run for vice president. He came to Madison to rally support, not only for Lyndon Johnson’s presidential reelection but also for Governor John Reynolds ’47, LLB’49 and soon-to-be lieutenant governor Pat Lucey ’46.
The image of a national politician in the UW’s cow palace isn’t as strange as it sounds. The Stock Pavilion was, for many candidates, a hot stop on the campaign trail. Though it seats a modest 2,000 (3,500 with chairs on the floor), the building was renowned for its acoustics. This made it a popular venue for concerts as well as speeches: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, and Muddy Waters all played the Stock Pavilion, and music instructor Edgar “Pop” Gordon 1927 held children’s concerts there, broadcasting them on WHA radio’s Journeys in Musicland.
Over the decades, the Stock Pavilion hosted speeches by many political leaders, including U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Harry Truman; three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan; and Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali, who each gave addresses about civil rights. The most recent politician to visit the Stock Pavilion was former president Bill Clinton, who arrived in 2008 to promote the presidential primary run of his wife, Hillary.
Published in the Winter 2026 issue
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