In 1932, G. William Longenecker was hired by the Board of Regents to work with the Arboretumand be on the Arboretum Committee, which was formed by Ed Gilbert.

[4] Longenecker Horticultural Gardens would be named after him in 1967, and a stone bench placed, honoring his 34 years of service as the Arboretum's Executive Director.

[5] Leopold and other members of the first Arboretum Committee, especially Professor Norman C. Fassett of the Botany Department, proposed a research agenda around re-establishing "original Wisconsin" landscape and plant communities, particularly those that predated European settlement, such as tallgrass prairie and oak savanna.

[6] Between 1935 and 1941, crews from the Civilian Conservation Corps provided most of the labor to accomplish this task under the supervision of Ted Sperry, an ecologist and prairie plant root specialist who had studied with Arthur G. Vestal at the University of Illinois.

[8] In addition to its long-standing commitment to ecological restoration, the Arboretum also features traditional horticultural collections of labeled plants arranged in garden-like displays.

[12] Charles E. Brown of the Wisconsin Historical Society was responsible for restoring the publicly accessible mound groups.