You didn’t have to be a honeymooner to visit Niagara Falls, 52 years ago

 
In the summer of 1966, you could take a long weekend vacation to Niagara Falls by train, on the Milwaukee Road.  The railroad promoted a four-day trip from August 19th through 22nd, with train fare only costing $61.50 round-trip between La Crosse and the falls.  
 
A big wedding was happening in Washington, the first week of August that year.  President Johnson’s daughter Luci would marry a Chicago area native named Patrick Nugent.  Nugent went to high school at Campion in Prairie du Chien, and he was a senior at Marquette University in Milwaukee in ’65 when he invited the president’s daughter to be his college prom date.  The dark-haired Luci wore a blonde wig to the prom, and called herself “Amy Nunn”…and apparently, none of the reporters scoping out the dance recognized her.
 
A Tribune editorial in ’66 predicted that father of the bride Johnson would be challenged in 1968 by Michigan Governor George Romney.  The father of future presidential candidate Mitt Romney was thought to be the top Republican for what the Tribune called the “dubious privilege” of facing LBJ.  As it turned out, George Romney quit the race just before the first primary in ’68, and Johnson decided a month later that he wouldn’t seek another term.
 
The Trane Company of La Crosse was spending $6 million on a new administrative building south of Highway 33 in 1966.  Also on the south side of town, a new fire station was being planned for the intersection of Losey Boulevard and Green Bay Streets, on the other side of Losey from the new Central High School.  And north La Crosse was still in the running for a new swimming pool…in 1966, 52 years ago, yesterday in La Crosse.