Our top story tonight, fire at the TV station, 53 years ago

 
On Good Friday of 1965, the studios of WKBT Television and WKBH Radio on 6th Street were gutted by an early-morning fire.  No one was hurt, but the fire damage forced broadcasters for both stations out of that building for a time.  WKBH, now WIZM, was offered a temporary studio a block away by competing radio station WLCX.  As for Channel 8, it could still air network TV shows, but local talent had to broadcast from the station transmitter in Galesville, sound only, for a few days.  Lost in the blaze were 20,000 recordings…3000 commercials…and the costume worn by Jack Martin as Bozo the Clown.  
 
The Channel 8 fire struck at the peak of the city’s worst flooding on record.  The Mississippi crested in La Crosse on April 22nd, at almost 18 feet…6 feet above flood stage.  The high water shut down the Causeway for about two weeks, and the Clinton Street bridge to French Island also was closed for many days.  
 
And the old courthouse between 3rd and 4th Streets was demolished that April, after 61 years of operation.  A Montgomery Ward store would open on Courthouse Square less than a year later.  The block is now called Belle Square.  The courthouse dome came down 53 years ago, 1965, yesterday in La Crosse.