Yesterday in La Crosse
If you don’t like winter weather, imagine what Nathan Myrick went through
In 1967, folks in La Crosse were marking 125 years since Nathan Myrick’s decision to build a house here. A newspaper article reported that Myrick became the first white settler in 1842, by building a cabin around the current intersection of Front and State Streets. A winter storm blew the roof off Myrick’s cabin on his first night there, and left 6 inches of snow inside the cabin by morning. Myrick was 19 at the time, and moved on to another town a year later, eventually settling in St. Paul.
The Snowflake ski-jumping tournament in Westby was in its 44th year in 1967. Another local tradition, dining out, meant restaurant specials such as a smorgasbord at Maple Grove near West Salem, and Italian nights at the Chateau supper club, south of La Crosse on Highway 35.
K-Mart on State Road was thinking ahead to spring, offering women’s Easter hats for $1.87…giant Hershey bars for 29 cents…and Metrecal diet drinks for 25 cents a can, in 1967, yesterday in La Crosse.