Grandview was getting ready to close, 50 years ago

During the summer of 1969, it was announced that the Grandview hospital on Main Street in La Crosse would merge with the Skemp Clinic, and the combined medical facility would be known as Skemp-Grandview. The hospital closed down for about a year, until it was taken over by the UW-La Crosse Foundation. Many organizations moved their offices into Grandview, such as the Coulee Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, the Cancer Society, the Wisconsin Heart Association, and the local Girl Scouts.

An iron fence was being moved from Sparta to Madison…actually, moved back to Madison. Fifteen hundred feet of fencing around the Wisconsin Child Center in Sparta would be relocated to the governor’s mansion. The fence originally had been given to the state by the King of Norway in 1848, the year Wisconsin gained statehood, and it surrounded the state capitol building until a fire in 1907. After that, the fence was sent to Sparta.

Saturday morning kids’ shows were all over the TV networks in 1969. The new Saturday programs introduced that fall included H.R. Pufnstuf, Dastardly and Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, and a show about a Great Dane and his four human friends–Fred, Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy. Those meddling kids from ‘Scooby-Doo’ made their debut 50 years ago, yesterday in La Crosse.