Tying an all-time record high, 25 years ago

On July 13th of 1995, the mercury soared to 108 degrees in La Crosse by 3 in the afternoon, and stayed at that temperature for another two hours.  That triple-digit reading tied the highest temperature ever measured in the city, in July of 1936.  Combined with high humidity, it felt like 121 degrees at one point that day.  The WIZM staff tried to fry an egg on the blacktop in the studio parking lot downtown.  It didn’t really work.  At the Holmen Middle School, the cast of a community theater show had to rehearse in the air-conditioned cafeteria, because there was too much moisture on the auditorium stage.  La Crosse had a total of 37 days with temperatures above 90 degrees in the summer of ’95.  

The New Orleans Saints were planning once again to beat the heat of Louisiana by holding training camp at UW-La Crosse.  The football team was practicing in La Crosse for the eighth year in a row.  The Saints had finished the ’94 season with a 7-and-9 record, for second place in their division, six games behind the 49ers.  UW-Stevens Point joined the Cheese League of Wisconsin training camps that summer, hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars.   

The UW-L campus was about to get a clock tower.  University regents were asked to approve a 40-foot-high tower, to be named for Jake and Janet Hoeschler.  It would be built near the Murphy Library and the Cowley Science Hall.   

At the movies that July, you could see “Apollo 13,” “Pocahontas,” and “The Bridges of Madison County,” in 1995, yesterday in La Crosse.