Beatlemania begins in America, 54 years ago

On this night in 1964, the Fab Four made its first live appearance on U.S. television, on “The Ed Sullivan Show”…sandwiched on Sunday night TV between “My Favorite Martian” and “The Judy Garland Show.”  The Beatles were featured three weeks in a row on “Sullivan,” and they weren’t very well known in the states before their arrival in New York.  The La Crosse Tribune ran a front-page photo of the band that weekend.  Ringo was the only one identified correctly. 

The Beatles never played at La Crosse’s Mary E. Sawyer Auditorium, but other big stars did perform at the Sawyer that week in February.  Movie musical star Jane Powell headlined a show one night, followed the next night by a country music show featuring Jim Reeves and Stringbean.  Reeves died in a plane crash later that year.

Three months after the shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, that city was considering designs for a large marble monument at the crime scene in Dealey Plaza.  That monument was never built. 

The La Crosse city council was getting ready to buy new fluorescent street lights for downtown, at a cost of around $120,000.  Lights on in 1964, 54 years ago, yesterday in La Crosse.