Yesterday in La Crosse

Some counties in Wisconsin have used the same courthouse for a century or more. For example, Vernon County has used the same building in Viroqua for its court system since the 1880’s. In La Crosse County, however, there have been three courthouses occupied over the last 70 years, as the county updates its facilities for […]

Just a few years ago, the northwest corner of 4th and King streets in La Crosse was home to a couple of popular businesses — the India Curry House and Glory Days sports bar. A 4 a.m. fire April 28, 2022 destroyed those two buildings. It took about three hours for the front wall of […]

Most of the major entertainment awards are handed out in Hollywood, or New York, but La Crosse had its own award ceremony for several years. The La Crosse Community Theatre (LCT) was founded in the early 1960s, and came up with the Dionysos Awards to honor performers in its local stage productions. The award’s name […]

The year 1973 was one of breaking barriers in La Crosse, when the city elected its first female council member, Sharon Imes. That was the same year W. Peter Gilbertson was running for his second term as mayor. In the 1970s, La Crosse used to have elections for mayor every odd-numbered year. That’s when Gilbertson […]

For all of the businesses that can operate at one location for decades, you can find many others that have much shorter lives, or move around. Drive-ins and burger places often fall into that category, and the La Crosse area has seen its share of changes where folks used to go for fast food. For […]

The year 2004 was big for La Crosse in different ways. A presidential election year brought candidates to the city, including the incumbent president, George W. Bush. That May, the president took a bus ride along the Mississippi for rallies at Prairie du Chien, and then at Logger Field in La Crosse. The ballpark crowd […]

The year 1975 was a time for change in La Crosse. Lots of old buildings along the riverfront were being torn down in the 1970s, with the goal of improving that section of downtown, partly through a project called Harborview. La Crosse elected a new mayor in the spring of ’75, who stayed in office […]

For a decade, Freedom Fest was more than just a summer event “Yesterday in La Crosse” — it was a heartfelt celebration of our veterans and community spirit. From 2008 to 2017, the festival brought together thousands each year, blending the thrill of music and motorcycles, while raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for veterans […]

Big box stores are slowly becoming extinct. The La Crosse area has a few examples of those that are no more, including multiple Kmarts and Shopkos, a Sears and perhaps some remember the Bell Discount Store. Kmart was one of the first discount store chains in the U.S., launching in the early 1960s. La Crosse’s […]

For more than 40 years, La Crosse has developed sister-city partnerships with communities in several foreign countries. Visitors to north side of Riverside Park can see symbols of those partnerships by touring the International Gardens, featuring landmarks representing communities around the world. The first official sister-city bond involving La Crosse traces back to the 1980s, […]

He went from being ‘Jimmy Who’ to the president in a very short time. Jimmy Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981, making a few stops to the La Crosse area along the way. Mr. Carter passed away at the end of 2024, shortly after turning 100. During his 1976 campaign, and once while […]

The Rotary Lights display in La Crosse’s Riverside Park is now a 30-year tradition shining along the riverfront every night from Thanksgiving weekend to New Year’s Eve. Three years ago, though, never-before-seen weather shut everything down in the middle of the season, but volunteers worked tirelessly to get some semblance of Rotary Lights back on […]

It was called the Cheese League. NFL teams holding minicamp across Wisconsin, and UW-La Crosse was host to one of those teams for a dozen years. Beginning in 1988, the New Orleans Saints called the UW-L campus home for a few weeks in the summer. From coach Mike Ditka, a rookie RB named Ricky Williams […]

In December of 1959, the Mt. La Crosse ski hill opened for business, near Highway 35 in the town of Shelby. Ted Motschman and his wife Sue were able to lease 200 acres of hillside land for the ski slope, but more atop the hill was needed for the project. Five donors helped Ted Motschman […]

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, […]

In November of 1974, Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey spoke in the new North Hall of UW-L, now called Wimberly Hall. Democrat Lucey was seeking a second term, and told students he could not support a tuition cut approved by the Board of Regents, because that would put more burden on taxpayers to fund the colleges, […]

A newspaper story in November of 1974 called the jobless rate in La Crosse County “chronically high.” The rate was around 8-10% with thousands of people unable to find work.  The story blamed labor walkouts and plant closings for the bad local economy, specifically pointing to the closings since the late 50s of three La Crosse […]

In April of 1973, the immediate La Crosse area received 16 inches of snow in just 36 hours. It was the third biggest snowstorm on record in the city, behind snowfalls in 1959, and 1971. In Prairie du Chien, three cars collided on snow-covered Highway 18, near the Old Rock School. Six people from the […]