Local retail stores were ready for the big “K”…52 years ago

Just before Labor Day of 1965, a new K-Mart store opened on State Road in La Crosse, across from the Village Shopping Center.  K-Mart advertised itself as a discount department store and food market…and it was the second big discount store in town.  The first was Bell Discount on the causeway, and to remind shoppers that it would still be around, Bell had a 10 per cent off sale on every item in the store, shortly before the K-Mart opening.  Bell promoted its “already low” discount prices.  
 
The Soell family still had a drug store on Gillette Street in ’65, and somebody broke in around Labor Day.  Soell’s became better known as a liquor outlet.
 
A Wisconsin native in the president’s cabinet had just been named ambassador to Poland.  John Gronouski had been the U.S. Postmaster General for two years before being appointed ambassador.  And before going to Washington, Gronouski worked in Madison as the state tax commissioner.
 
CBS re-broadcast a “National Driving Test,” for which viewers could find a scoresheet in the newspaper and answer questions about driver’s safety.  The first time that the network aired the driving test, more than 40 per cent of the viewing audience flunked.  Fifty-two years ago, 1965, yesterday in La Crosse.