Getting ready for a new courthouse, 57 years ago

In 1962, La Crosse County was showing off plans for a new courthouse to replace the one which had stood between State and Vine Streets since the turn of the century. Hackner Schroeder and Associates designed a new three-story structure to be built just north of the Sawyer Auditorium. The south wing of the building would contain the jail, and county offices and courtrooms would be on the north end. The building opened in 1965, around the time the old courthouse was demolished to make way for a Montgomery Ward store. The ’65 courthouse is now an apartment building called the Hub on 6th.

A doctor named Blake Donaldson made the news with what sounds like an early version of the Atkins diet. Donaldson wrote a book called ‘Strong Medicine,’ advocating a meat-only diet…except for 6 glasses of water a day, and maybe coffee. The doctor crusaded against eating flour or any kind of starchy food.

Rudy’s A & W Drive-In on South Avenue had the meats in ’62…a carry-out special of 12 hot dogs and a gallon of root beer for $2.50. Or a dozen hamburgers and root beer for $3…which might not go over too well with that doctor, if you threw in the buns, and maybe the root beer, yesterday in La Crosse.