In February of 1980, La Crosse School Superintendent Dick Swantz got his contract renewed–narrowly, by a 5-to-4 vote of the school board. Swantz had been in La...
On February 20th of 1962, astronaut John Glenn made three orbits around the earth aboard a Mercury capsule called “Friendship 7.” Glenn was the third American to...
In February of 1971, the La Crosse State campus conducted a disaster drill for emergency workers. They had to react to fictitious reports of tornadoes causing...
In late 1955, Joe Givens resigned as the boss of La Crosse’s Mary E. Sawyer Auditorium, claiming that he could not perform his duties as manager under existing conditions. Givens...
The April 1960 presidential primary in the Badger State proved to be a turning point for John Kennedy. The Massachusetts Senator scored 56 per cent of...
In 1966, Wisconsin Governor Warren Knowles predicted that the dairy state could repeal its ban on colored oleo-margarine within a few months. Knowles said oleo is...
In the fall of 1973, word got out that NASA was testing women to see if they could withstand the rigors of space travel, like weightlessness...
In 1991, La Crosse got unwanted national publicity when a mob on the street overturned a city police car and set it on fire. It happened...
In the fall of 1975, McDonald’s opened a downtown location in La Crosse at 4th and Main, across the street from Doerflinger’s department store. The golden...
In early 1970, more than 3700 people in the La Crosse School District signed petitions for a referendum affecting how the city schools would get funding,...
In 2012, Drake Hall on the UW-L campus had to be evacuated because of a late-night fire. The flames were confined to the basement area, but...
In January of 1958, the U.S. launched a satellite successfully for the first time. The Explorer was described in newspapers as a “chatterbox,” making noise as...
On one day in February of 1959, La Crosse got 8 inches of snow. A front-page photo in the Tribune showed a car buried in snow,...
During the 1966 Oktoberfest, go-go nights were set up at the Avalon Ballroom on Copeland, to attract a younger crowd. But on the first of the...
Seventy-three million viewers tuned in to “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9th of 1964, to see a new British band. The Beatles made their American television...
It’s known as ‘the day the music died,’ in February of 1959. The La Crosse Tribune headline of February 3rd said “3 Top Rock ‘N’ Roll...
In 1967, the Tomah city council was being asked for permission to record council meetings. The request came from alderman Del Lonnquist, who reported news for radio station WTMB. ...
In the spring of 1990, the university was preparing to host the WIAA state high school track meet for the first time, the weekend after Memorial...
On January 28th in 1998, the message “impeach” was stamped in the snow in large letters on Pettibone Beach. The message was prepared to coincide with...
January 22nd was a major news day in 1973. It was the first Monday in Richard Nixon’s second term as president. Nixon had been inaugurated two...