Yesterday in La Crosse
La Crosse joins “Bands, Queens, Clowns” in St. Paul, 48 years ago
A delegation from La Crosse took part in the St. Paul Winter Carnival of 1969.
Two hundred persons from La Crosse took a train to the Twin Cities to be in a big February parade. Festmaster John Thomas, Mrs. Oktoberfest Joyce Lindseth, and Miss Oktoberfest Kristie Gates all rode on the Oktoberfest float. Also heading the local delegation was one fellow described by the Tribune as a ‘Fest director’…named Russell Cleary. Within a few years, Cleary would be the president of the Heileman Brewery. The really big names in the Winter Carnival parade included singer Pat Boone and actor Greg Morris, Barney from the TV show ‘Mission: Impossible.”
La Crosse would take another crack at fluoridation in 1969. A fluoride referendum had been defeated during the presidential election three months earlier, but the city council authorized another referendum for April 1st. The idea was rejected again by the voters. The city eventually did pass a fluoride referendum, about 20 years later.
And Florida had a Winter White House that year, as the new Republican president, Richard Nixon, established a vacation home in Key Biscayne, near Miami. Secret Service agents had set up a blockade at the end of the street, and required Nixon’s neighbors to show ID whenever they tried to get home. That was 48 years ago, 1969, Yesterday in La Crosse.
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