To Tell the Truth, it was like January during one April, 52 years ago in La Crosse

On April 8th and 9th of 1973, La Crosse saw one of its biggest snowstorms on record to that time.

The 16-inch total easily beat the previous record for April snow in the city, set 21 years earlier. Only two other storms delivered more snow to La Crosse…in 1959 and 1971. The total of 17 inches for the entire month stood as an April record for more than 40 years, until the city got 19 inches of snow in April of 2018.

Surprisingly, the forecast had called for light snow or rain.

Wisconsin has a few popular casinos now, but gambling was still off-limits around the state in ’73. Voters were eager to play bingo, passing a statewide referendum to legalize the game. Some TV stations around the state, including Channel 8 in La Crosse, had broadcast daily bingo shows in the mid-60’s for prizes, but the state shut them down, arguing that businesses offering the bingo cards had an unfair advantage in the market. Bingo actually had been outlawed in Wisconsin in 1939, and opponents of the amendment feared that organized crime, and even worse forms of gambling, would follow if bingo was approved.

At its annual banquet in April, the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce continued its tradition of hosting celebrity speakers by bringing in TV personality Kitty Carlisle. Five days a week in ’73, Carlisle could be seen as a panelist on the game show “To Tell the Truth.” In La Crosse, she spoke about her career as a singer and occasional movie star, noting that she was gaining young fans because of her role in the Marx Brothers classic “A Night at the Opera.” The real Kitty Carlisle stands up in 1973, yesterday in La Crosse.