Spring Green

Spring Green, village, Sauk county, south-central Wisconsin, U.S. The village lies near the Wisconsin River, about 35 miles (55 km) west of Madison. It was laid out in 1843 and named for the way the south-facing hills turned green early in spring. It was a shipping point for livestock and wheat and had dairy farming, lumbering, and cheese making. The modern economy is based on agriculture (livestock, corn [maize], and dairy products), tourism, and the manufacture of glass products.

Spring Green is best known for its association with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was born in 1867 at Richland Center, 20 miles (30 km) northwest. He chose Spring Green as the site for Taliesin, his home begun in 1911 and rebuilt after the fires of 1914 and 1925. The building hugs the hills on which it was constructed and is part of a 600-acre (245-hectare) estate. At Spring Green in 1932, Wright established the Taliesin Fellowship, an architectural school for apprentices; the buildings now constitute the summer headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and were designated a World Heritage site in 2019. Wright was buried in Spring Green until 1985, when, in accordance with the will of his third wife, his remains were exhumed and reburied in Scottsdale, Arizona, the location of his winter home (Taliesin West).

A few miles south of Spring Green is another unusual architectural structure—the House on the Rock, designed in the 1940s by Alex Jordan, 450 feet (140 metres) above the Wyoming Valley on a 60-foot (20-metre) chimneylike rock. Appended to the house is a narrow room stretching more than 200 feet (60 metres) over the valley below. The site includes a wildly eclectic series of exhibitions of collectibles and museum-quality artifacts, including music-making machines and the world’s largest carousel.

Tower Hill State Park is just south of Spring Green; Governor Dodge and Blue Mound state parks are farther south. During summer, American Players Theatre performs works by William Shakespeare and others in an outdoor theatre in Spring Green. Inc. 1869. Pop. (2000) 1,444; (2010) 1,628.