Bands, queens, clowns in St. Paul, according to a newspaper headline 50 years ago

A 1969 story in the Tribune was about the St. Paul Winter Carnival that year. Two hundred persons from La Crosse took a train to the Twin Cities, to be in a big February parade. Oktoberfest royalty rode on the fest float. Also heading the local delegation was one fellow described as a ‘fest director’…named Russ Cleary. Within a few years, Cleary would be president of the Heileman brewery. The really big names featured in the Winter Carnival parade included singer Pat Boone, and Greg Morris from ‘Mission: Impossible.’

La Crosse’s attempts to get fluoridation might have been a ‘mission: impossible.’ In 1969, the city was preparing for another referendum on putting fluoride in local drinking water. A referendum was defeated the previous November, but there apparently was some question whether the presidential election somehow affected the outcome of that fluoride vote. The issue was defeated again that spring, and fluoride would not be approved in La Crosse until 1988.

Florida had a ‘winter White House,’ with new president Richard Nixon establishing a vacation home in Key Biscayne, near Miami…in 1969, yesterday in La Crosse.