Campus Alert Archive
UW-Madison

Bottles, Bonfires, and a $10,000 Ladder Truck: The 1996 Mifflin Riot

WIcivil unrestemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

The 1996 Mifflin Street Block Party near the University of Wisconsin-Madison turned violent on May 4, 1996, when a crowd of several thousand threw bottles at a fire truck sent to extinguish a bonfire the crowd had started. Officers and firefighters used high-power hoses and pepper spray as the crowd chanted 'wood' and fed doors and timber into the flames. Roughly eight bonfires were extinguished, 20 officers were injured, and a ladder truck sustained $10,000 in damage.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
—
Injured
—
Institution
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Public R1 · WI
Police loudspeaker and local media (pre-mass-notification era)
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTPA System
Approximate reconstruction218 chars
This is the police. Stop throwing objects and clear the street. Firefighters must be allowed to extinguish these fires. This gathering is now an unlawful assembly. Disperse immediately or you will be subject to arrest.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed: UW-Madison and the city had no mass-notification system in 1996, so warnings came from police loudspeakers in the Mifflin Street neighborhood.
Accounts describe officers and firefighters using high-power hoses and pepper spray after bottles were thrown at a fire truck.
UPDATEother
Approximate reconstruction222 chars
Police and firefighters extinguished roughly eight bonfires overnight on Mifflin Street. Twenty officers were injured and a fire department ladder truck was damaged. The disturbance has ended and the area has been cleared.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed: the figures of about eight bonfires, 20 injured officers, and $10,000 in ladder-truck damage are documented in the Badger Herald history.
The 1996 riot prompted the city to spend more than $80,000 on policing the block party in subsequent years.
Context

Background

The Mifflin Street Block Party began in 1969 as a politically charged spring gathering in the student neighborhood southwest of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, but by the 1990s it had become primarily a drinking event. On May 4, 1996, it boiled over into a riot. According to Wikipedia and the Badger Herald's history of the party, a crowd of several thousand threw bottles at a fire truck dispatched to put out a bonfire, and as officers and firefighters responded with high-power hoses and pepper spray, the crowd chanted 'wood' and passed doors and timber toward the flames, starting a second fire at the other end of the block. About eight bonfires were extinguished over the night, 20 officers were injured, and the department's ladder truck sustained $10,000 in damage. The Wisconsin Alumni Association and Madison-area outlets describe 1996 as the turning point after which the city took far greater control of the event, spending more than $80,000 on policing in following years; no comparable riot recurred. Because the era predated campus mass-notification, the only real-time crowd messaging came from police loudspeakers, with the scope of the damage reported through local media the next day.
Analysis

Key Findings

The 1996 Mifflin Street Block Party riot began when a crowd threw bottles at a fire truck sent to extinguish a bonfire
Roughly eight bonfires were set and the crowd chanted 'wood' while feeding doors and timber into the flames
Twenty officers were injured and a ladder truck sustained $10,000 in damage
The riot prompted the city to spend more than $80,000 on policing the event in later years
Outcome
Twenty officers were injured and a ladder truck sustained $10,000 in damage. The 1996 riot was severe enough that the city afterward spent more than $80,000 on policing the event, and no comparable riot occurred again.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Source
    Mifflin Street Block Party - Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org
  2. Student Paper
    History of the Mifflin Street Block Party - The Badger Herald
    badgerherald.com
  3. Official
    Mifflin Street - Wisconsin Alumni Association
    uwalumni.com
Tags
civil-unrestriotwisconsinhistoricpre-modern-alertmifflin-streetblock-party
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion