Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to hire a blacksmith…49 years ago

In July of 1968, the La Crosse County Board chose to postpone the planned retirement of blacksmith Hjalmer Overson for a year.  Overson was about to turn 65, which was the mandatory retirement age for county employees at the time.  Overson worked with the highway department, repairing machinery, and the department said trying to find another blacksmith in 1968 would be virtually impossible.  
 
James Earl Ray, accused of killing Martin Luther King in Memphis, was returned to the U.S. for trial, a month after being arrested in England.  King was murdered in April.  The announcement of Ray’s arrest came on the day of the New York funeral for Senator Robert Kennedy, who was shot while running for president.
 
Plenty of options for dinner and dancing in the La Crosse area on a weekend.  The P and J bar on Pearl Street had a piano bar four nights a week, and also advertised movies of Green Bay Packers games on Sunday afternoons and evenings.  Millie and Don offered the ‘tastiest fish in town’ Friday nights at the Party House, south of La Crosse on Highway 35.  On Rose Street, Glen’s Bar and Pizza had a complete menu that included steaks, chops, spaghetti, and shrimp.  The Verse Bar occupies that building now, but it was Glen’s in 1968, 49 years ago, Yesterday in La Crosse.