Don’t take away our weather bureau…a plea 65 years ago

In early 1953, the La Crosse Common Council appealed to Wisconsin’s two Senators…Alexander Wiley and Joe McCarthy…to vote against a nearly three million dollar cut in the Weather Bureau budget, which could lead to the closing of 150 weather stations around the country.  An 800-thousand dollar spending cut was about to take effect at the La Crosse office.  The city’s first government weather station opened in 1873.  
 
A La Crosse bank teller was caught embezzling, but he received probation.  The 24-year-old teller pled guilty to taking more than $1700 while he was working at the State Bank.  He reportedly used the money to pay daily living expenses.  
 
Meanwhile, an American couple went to the electric chair that June for a much more serious crime.  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for giving secrets, including atom bomb technology, to the Soviet Union.  Julius Rosenberg said he was framed, and the couple’s sons have argued that their mother should not have been convicted of spying.
 
And Prairie du Chien put on a celebration in the spring for the grand opening of the Villa Louis mansion as a Wisconsin historic site.  The house had just been acquired by the State Historical Society from the family of fur trading millionaire Hercules Dousman.  The Villa welcomed visitors 65 years ago, 1953…yesterday in La Crosse.