Before the mall, Sears, J.C. Penney and Herberger’s ruled in downtown La Crosse

Before Valley View Mall opened in 1980, shopping in La Crosse happened downtown, mostly between 4th and 6th Streets.

The big local name was Doerflinger’s at 4th and Main.

At the opposite end of the same block, you could find Herberger’s on 5th, and not too far from there were Sears and JCPenney.

For years, JCPenney had downtown La Crosse’s only public escalator, which only went up, from the first floor to the second.

Once the mall opened, JCPenney, Sears and Herberger’s left downtown.

Doerflinger’s remained open a couple more years.

Downtown La Crosse still had a Montgomery Ward store for about 20 years, after the former courthouse between 3rd and 4th Streets was demolished.

That block is now the complex known as Belle Square.

In 1981, the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce took a $20,000 study that had been gathering dust and looked at it again, in search of ways for downtown to compete with Valley View.

The Chamber report recommended more emphasis on mass transit and improvements in downtown parking.

Within a couple of years, most parking meters would be removed from the La Crosse business district, another sign of change for downtown shoppers, yesterday in La Crosse.