Fifty-seven years ago, La Crosse police compared accident figures from 1961 to the previous year. There were about four crashes a day in La Crosse, for...
In 1976, Father James Groppi of Milwaukee spoke on the La Crosse campus, and was back in the headlines. Groppi had become famous for civil rights...
A La Crosse newspaper headline said “Attempt on life of Fuehrer fails.” And there was only one Fuehrer around, Adolf Hitler. In November of ’39, Hitler...
In the summer of 1999, government protester Kurt Machholz climbed to the top of the Cass Street bridge in La Crosse, halting afternoon traffic as he...
In November of 1963, Republicans were making plans for a comeback in 1964, hoping to limit Democrat John Kennedy to just one term. But Democrats scored...
“This…is London” was a familiar opening to Edward R. Murrow’s radio reports from England during 1942. Murrow and other CBS reporters, including Charles Collingwood and Eric...
A humorous song about “poisoning pigeons in the park” was talked about in real life in La Crosse, in 1976. The idea of poisoning pigeons...
The Bush family has been among the many political visitors to La Crosse in recent years. Both U.S. presidents named Bush came to La Crosse while...
Anoka, Minnesota was holding its yearly children’s Halloween parade on October 31st of 1961, when an out-of-control car crashed on the parade route, killing two women...
Only one major league baseball club from Wisconsin has ever been a World Series champion, and that was the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. They beat the Yankees...
President Jimmy Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan met in just one televised debate in 1980, in Cleveland one week before the election. Third-party candidate John...
In April of 1971, La Crosse’s Starlite Drive-In near Highway 33 opened for the season. The Starlite had a triple-feature of horror movies on the bill,...
Halloween night of 1975 was a Friday. On that night, the student union at UW-L showed “Psycho” and “The Birds,” a student play was performed at...
The average American salary in 1934, during the Depression, was around $1400 a year. A doctor could make $3000 per year, and a lawyer, about $4000....
The #1 song on the week before Halloween of 1962 was “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett. In 1991, Pickett performed the song at an outdoor...
A cease-fire in Vietnam could happen before the end of ’72. That’s what a group of wealthy contributors to President Nixon’s re-election campaign was being told...
It happened the night before Halloween, 1938. “The Mercury Theatre on the Air” on CBS Radio broadcast a new version of “The War of the Worlds,”...
In October of 1989, the La Crosse County board was considering the idea of hiring a county executive to manage government business. The concept of an...
One year before the ’72 presidential election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern visited La Crosse during Oktoberfest. At the time, McGovern was one of several Democrats...
The former 1965 courthouse and jail in La Crosse were recently converted to an apartment building called “The Hub on 6th.” That building replaced an old...