BRIDGES & BUSES - 1975

Lately I have been working on volume II of my La Farge history.  I have been reviewing my research of the events that happened during the mid-1970s in this little Kickapoo River town.  It was a crazy time, as the controversy over the La Farge dam project seemed to control everything happening in the village.  One of those strange occurrences in the fall of 1975 put La Farge back in the media bulls-eye once again.  The local protest played out over a couple of weeks and was initiated by the appearance of Senator William Proxmire in the village.

Senator Proxmire spoke to a standing room only crowd at the new La Farge firehouse that Saturday morning, September 5, 1975.  Proxmire announced that he was withdrawing his support of the dam project after being a staunch proponent of the project for years.  The announcement stunned nearly everyone in attendance (including my wife, Carolyn and me) and the discussion after the senator left, was what do we do now?  The pro-dam contingent, a vast majority in the village, wondered what was the next step to take?

That next step occurred on the following Monday evening at a special school board meeting held in the La Farge gym.  One hundred and thirty people were in attendance at the meeting and a petition was read bearing 140 names asking that the school board take appropriate action if the board members felt that area bridges were unsafe for travel by school buses.  A discussion at the meeting brought up that most area bridges recently had weight limits posted on them, some with limits as low as ten tons.  All of the bridges on Highway 131 north of La Farge located in the dam project land had 10-ton limits except for one.  School board president Roger Gabrielson estimated that a full school bus would weigh close to or exceed the 10-ton weight limit.  Gabrielson contended that nine state highway bridges located in the La Farge School District were unsafe for the district’s seven buses.

In a 3-2 vote, the school board decided to close La Farge Schools beginning on the following Thursday due to the weight restricted bridges.  Board members Mac Marshall Jr., David Clift and Marvin Munson voted for the measure, while Gabrielson and Richard Allen voted against it.  Both Gabrielson and Allen voted against the measure because they wanted the school to close the very next day, on Tuesday.

Discussion at the special school board meeting also focused on the fact that there was no money budgeted for repairs or replacements for any of the bridges on Highway 131 north of La Farge.  Those bridges were supposed to be removed when the lake from the dam project was created, but with Senator Proxmire’s withdrawal of support for completion of the dam project, it seemed the bridges would have to remain in use.  Since Governor Patrick Lucey earlier had said that no state funds would be used on the bridge and highway relocations for the La Farge dam project, it could be years before the bridges would be upgraded or replaced.

School board president Gabrielson told the board and attendees that the school would be in contact with the state DOT the next morning about the bridge concerns and the school closing.

Further local protest was in place the next morning as the La Farge school buses crossed the crumbling Highway 82 bridge over the Kickapoo River in La Farge.  On that Tuesday, a dozen protestors, many carrying signs denouncing the conditions of the bridge as well as state and federal politicians, paced warily along the sides of the bridge.  The number of protestors grew during the week and nearly three dozen people picketed on the bridge west of Nuzum’s by week’s end.  A reporter for the LaCrosse Tribune covering the demonstrations took a photograph of Orval Howard standing in one of the holes in the side of the road on the state highway bridge.  In the photo that appeared in the next days’ newspaper, Howard sank over three feet into the hole before his feet found some hanging angle iron beneath the road.  Soon after, the county highway crews placed orange construction barrels over the holes and stretched snow fence along each side of the bridge to keep demonstrators and others away from the holes.

By the end of the week, others who were walking across the bridge over the Kickapoo River in La Farge included school children riding on the buses to and from school.

After the leaders of the La Farge Schools contacted the state DOT about the bridges and scheduled school closing, intense negotiations resulted in a compromise to avoid closing La Farge’s schools.  Representatives from the DOT met with school officials on the afternoon following the special school board meeting.  An inspection was done of the bridge at Nuzum’s (where picketing had begun that morning) and options were discussed.  The next day, the DOT sent a letter to the school with assurances that all the state bridges were safe for school buses to cross.  School bus routes were then altered to avoid crossing the bridges north of La Farge as much as possible, although the new routes took more buses across the Highway 82 Bridge in La Farge.  It was decided by the school leaders that the buses would stop at the bridge approaches and the children would be unloaded.  Then the empty bus with red warning lights flashing would lead the walking students across the bridge.  Once across, the students would return to the bus and the route would continue.  This drastic move of having students walk across the bridges in and around La Farge was continued for several school days reaching into the next week.

During that time, more state bridge inspectors came to La Farge and inspected all nine bridges cited by the school in their report to the Wisconsin DOT.  With new weight restrictions and speed limits placed on the bridges, the La Farge school buses once again began hauling students across the spans instead of having them walk.  The press coverage of the La Farge bridge protest and the students walking across the bridges was massive.  Besides the La Farge area newspapers and radio as well as the LaCrosse newspaper, radio and TV stations, the bridges story merited coverage in the Madison and Milwaukee newspapers, radio and TV stations.  Several Chicago newspapers and one of the Windy City’s TV stations also covered the story of the La Farge bridges and walking students.

La Farge Epitaph editor Lonnie Muller concluded his “WHAT NOW ???” editorial in the September 10^th issue by writing, “I support the board 100% even though I figured a Tuesday closing was even better.  The day has come when La Farge can quit taking a back seat to everything in the state.  It’s damn time our side of the story got out to Lucey and his conniving bunch of pigheads in Madison.  We are sick and tired of being the pawns in the chess game of life.  We just checkmated you Lucey and from now on you are playing a losing game with the people of the Kickapoo Valley, if not the entire state.  You figured that you could put us down forever, but it just didn’t work out that way did it?  I think that now, more than ever, the La Farge people are starting to really work together.  I was damn disgusted Saturday when Proxmire made his speech pulling his support from the project, but by Tuesday evening when I write this, I can say that I’m damn proud of these people in this community who are going to fight this together to the finish.  I think a new chapter just started for La Farge, and probably a pretty good one at that.”

In the following week’s Epitaph (9-17-1975), reporter Pete Beckstrand wrote an interesting article on the DOT bridge inspections.  The recent state inspections had found that all of the bridges in the Kickapoo Valley were structurally safe.  However, much of the article provided contrary evidence of the sorry state of most of the bridges around La Farge.  Beckstrand noted that many of the state highway bridges in the La Farge area were “used” bridges – having been originally built at other sites.  He wrote that Bridge 18 (the Bacon Bridge just north of Seelyburg and the dam project site) was originally a span over the Wisconsin River at Spring Green.  After the bad Kickapoo River flood of 1951 damaged the Bacon Bridge, the state highway department hauled an old Spring Green span out of storage and put it across the Kickapoo River as a replacement.  Beckstrand also detailed that there were a total of 92 bridges in Wisconsin that had weight restrictions and 15 of them were located in the northern Kickapoo Valley.  In the article, he quoted Lee Schneider, chief engineer of the DOT’s LaCrosse office, as saying in a phone interview that the La Farge area bridges were in need of “massive maintenance and repair”, and there was no state money budgeted to pay for it.

Within a week after the state bridge inspections, Bridges 16, 17, and 18 on Highway 131 north of La Farge were posted with speed limits and 10-ton weight limits.  The Highway 82 Bridge across Otter Creek west of La Farge was made one-way for traffic.  The Highway 82 Bridge over the Kickapoo River at Nuzum’s was already one-way due to the placement of barrels and snow fence along both sides.

Beckstrand also reported in the article that a La Farge school bus loaded with mostly small children was weighed on the scale at Nuzum’s.  The bus weighed 16,900 pounds and the Episcope reporter wondered if a bus loaded with high school age students might exceed the 10-ton limit placed on most area bridges.

KVA History Project - Part 2

So, let us finally continue with our look at the KVA local history project, which ran from 1977 through 1979.

            Perhaps no one knew of the importance of the oral history interviews for the KVA project better than Dale Muller of La Farge.  Dale had spent most of his life listening to peoples’ stories, remembering those stories and then passing them on to others.  As a young boy, Dale had been drawn to listen to his elders as they told of “the good old days”.  He remembered those stories of that earlier time and in 1972 when his son, Lonnie, began a new weekly newspaper in La Farge, he started writing about some of those memories in a weekly column called “John Bear Spreader Notes”.

            Dale used the pseudonym “Johnson Gunfrunk” when he penned the local history columns in the weekly issues of the Epitaph.  Some of the stories he told were priceless and I will share a very early one that he wrote in the second edition of the Epitaph – January 19, 1972.

            Dale was writing about the Dutch elm disease wiping out the American elm trees in the Kickapoo Valley.  He was not a big fan of that type of tree because it was a poor source of heat when it was burned for firewood and because of its penchant for warping and splitting.  Dale shared a local history story in that column that went like this, “Richard Cornell, local gunsmith, once made a full length stock for a .22 rifle out of elm.  It warped so bad that it bent the barrel.  He had the only gun on Bear Creek that would shoot around corners.  Dick became quite an expert at shooting squirrels on the other side of trees with it.”

            In 1976, when the village organized to celebrate the nation’s Bi-Centennial, Dale became a vital part of the committee that was formed in La Farge.  As part of La Farge’s look back for the American Bi-Centennial, Dale began to interview older people in the village.  Using a tape recorder for the interviews, he was able to save the precious local history stories for posterity.  As a matter of fact, when the Bi-Centennial activities were concluded with the 4^th of July Celebration in La Farge, Dale continued on with the oral history interviews and archived the tapes in the village’s library.

            When the Kickapoo Valley Association (KVA) began its local history project in 1977-78, Dale was a natural to serve on an “Advisory Group” for the project.  In the last issue of the “Kickapoo Pearls” (September – 1979), this testimony was made about the Advisory Group:

            “The Advisory Group to the Kickapoo Valley Association History Project has been a vital part of our efforts.  The members of the advisory group were selected by the KVA and the Crawford, Monroe and Vernon County Historical Societies to represent their various perspectives and concerns as historical information was gathered.  Other members were selected at large by the Advisory Group.  Their role has been to provide advice, direction, assistance, contacts and experience and knowledge to the staff of the project.  The members of the Advisory Group have served on a voluntary basis since early January of 1978.

            ‘Staff and Advisory Group have met regularly every six weeks over these past 20 months to jointly map out direction and goals.  Working in this type of situation was a new experience for most all of us and one that we’ll not soon forget.”

            Others on the Advisory Group included Kate Walter, Leita Twining Slayton, Kathy Calhoun, Helen Tuchalski, Jeanne & Bernard Smith, Connie Stephens, Steve Picus, Arlene Obert, and Dawald Craig.

            Dale Muller was also instrumental in helping with the initial phase of the KVA History Project, which was the preparation of a history of Seelyburg.  Dale had spent much of his youth in the Seelyburg area and helped to coordinate a research project on the old lumbering town on the Kickapoo River.  Working with other local history advocates Jeanne & Bernard Smith of La Farge and Connie & Lawrence Stephens of Viroqua, Dale joined Dale Treleven from the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Oral History Program to get the history of Seelyburg project started.

            In the summer of 1977, the KVA used a Summer Youth Work Program grant to hire Janet Marshall, a recent graduate of La Farge High School, to research and write about the former community of Seelyburg.  Janet conducted oral history interviews with several people and then wrote an excellent history about the old lumbering town.  Janet Marshall’s work set a fine example for the local history project that was to follow.

            With the advice and direction from the members of the Advisory Group, the KVA soon assembled a staff to collect the local and folk history, take that information from the interviews and put it into essay form and add photographs and graphics for the editions of the Kickapoo Pearls.  Tom Hovde, who lived near Ontario, became the leader of the KVA’s project and assisted at almost all levels besides administering all of the programs.

            Working from offices on La Farge’s Main Street, Hovde assembled a staff of researchers and writers that included Dail Murray, Lon Reuter, Judy Wilmes, Dan Eumurian, Lynne O’Brien, Mike Wright and Dana Strobel.  That group soon started conducting oral and folk history interviews with people up and down the Kickapoo Valley, recording their stories and memories while collecting and copying historical photographs to supplement the project.  According to a written account of the local history project that was published in the last issue of the Kickapoo Pearls, another local woman was a key ingredient to its success.

            From Volume IV, “Jean (Daines) Muller of La Farge was the main cog around which things got done.  Jean’s title was secretary/typist but her ability to keep files, typing, tapes, and everything else in order while working with ten people was a key to any accomplishments we’ve had.  Jean got married while she was working for us but it only slowed her down a little while.”

            Shawn Donovan of La Farge was the project’s bookkeeper, making sure that all CETA grant guidelines were followed and that the payroll came out on time.

            In addition to the written products of the KVA research, other mediums were used to present information on the history of the Kickapoo Valley.  Mike Wright led an effort to develop radio programs called the Crooked River Series, which aired the first Sunday evening of every month on WGBM-FM from Viroqua.  The one-hour programs included discussions on The Great Depression in the Kickapoo Valley, Settlement of the Kickapoo Valley, the Kickapoo Valley Railroad and other topics.  Several programs featured area musicians playing in “Old Time Kickapoo Music” segments.

            Frances Burton also produced a 16-mm color documentary film as part of the local history project.  Burton, whose family was from Gays Mills, was a filmmaker from Milwaukee, who moved back to the Kickapoo Valley to make the film.  She created the 15-minute film titled “Land of The Crooked River” from a script partially written by Dale Muller and narrated by Orlie Baker of Seneca.  The KVA History Project film (now a classic!) includes rare film footage from August 1939 of the last train on the Kickapoo railroad as it departed the station at Soldiers Grove.     

            In the end, the various results of the KVA’s local history project about the Kickapoo Valley were really marvels of their particular time.  The interviews, collections, essays, publications, oral tapes and film all strove to tell the story of a unique and particular place and its people.  That is something that others, including this humble scribbler, continue to this day.

Z-ZIP STOPPING!

A chaotic occurrence happened in La Farge for several days last week.  The Z-zip Stop was kind of closed!  It was more like a Z-zip Stopped!  There was nowhere in the village to buy gasoline or diesel fuel!  Citizens of La Farge were without the conveniences of a convenience store!  EEK!

            The mayhem began around 10 pm on the evening of Sunday, October 25^th.  As the Z-zip Stop closed its doors for the evening, machines of evil destruction moved in.  In the darkness of night (although lighted by the village streetlights and the lights of the business itself) the pulverization of the parking lot occurred.  By morning the gas pumps were gone, never to be seen again (actually, they stood over by the alley next to the motel).  The cement of the parking lot was completely pounded to pieces save for a new portion between the pumps and the sidewalk next to Main Street that had been poured only a week prior.  As people sleepily drove towards La Farge’s only gas station/convenience store that Monday morning, expecting to pick up a cup of Joe or their morning newspaper, they were shocked to see the parking lot marked off with the yellow tape of a crime scene.  Going to the Z-zip Stop was a no-go; business as usual was stopped!

            Actually, regular customers to the Z-zip Stop should not have been that amazed at the goings-on there that morning.  For the previous week, there had been a sign in the front door warning customers, “NO GAS OR FUEL!!” followed by a lengthy explanation on the renovations planned for the business for a few days (and the days were individually listed when there would be no gas) of the following week.  But who has time to read such proclamations?  Certainly not most of us loyal customers needing our daily visit with Jenni, Megan, or Diane, who all work at the Z-zip Stop. 

I had read the sign on the door, a couple of times actually as there had been some editing done to the original warning, but still I was totally unready for the days of deprivation.  I had even mentioned to Jenni on one occasion prior to the “Eve of Destruction”, as she punched through my lottery cards, that it looked like there wouldn’t be any gas available for a few days.  She shot me back a wary glance and muttered something about how it might be longer and that wouldn’t be the only thing not for sale.  I should have known!

As I stood on Main Street on that fateful Monday morning with other people wondering how we could get to the front door of the Z-zip Stop, I contemplated on when was the last time that the village had been “gasless”?  How long had it been since there was no place to buy gasoline in La Farge for your vehicle of choice?

We could go back to that terrible day in September of 2001 when the terrorist attacks on America took place.  The fear that followed caused a gas run in La Farge that evening as the line of vehicles wanting to gas up or top off reached beyond a block long.  The gas tanks at the Z-zip Stop ran dry that night due to the panic.

Earlier, when the last set of gas pumps were installed at the Z-zip Stop (I believe those were the second set of pumps there at the station), they had the credit card feature added so gas could be purchased even when the station was closed.  Before that, there were those after-closing evening hours when you could not buy gas in town.  When you have one gas station in town – that can be a problem. 

Back in the heyday of La Farge’s Main Street business district, there used to be nearly a dozen places where you could buy gas.  Someone usually knew someone who could open up one of those La Farge business places and sell some late night or early morning gas to you.  (I can remember such phone calls to my Dad when he owned C&S Motors back in the 1950s and ‘60s.)

            Later when the number of businesses selling gas in La Farge decreased, those places being closed at night or on weekends really became a problem.  When the oil crisis of the early 1970s hit America with a gasoline shortage, small town gas stations like La Farge’s could not get enough gasoline to last for seven days, so closing on weekends was almost mandatory.  Later when the number of gas stations in La Farge diminished to two or three, sometimes none were open for business on Sundays.  (When we operated the root beer stand in La Farge back in the early 1980s, we would often be the only business open in La Farge on a Sunday evening.  Many a time, we had to send folks new to town out to Viroqua for gas on those summer Sunday evenings.)

The Z-zip Stop opened on La Farge’s Main Street in 1987.  It was the first convenience store/gas station type of business in the village. Soon after it opened, the other gas station in town – Steve Olson’s Citgo Station – closed and the gas pumps fell silent there.

            The new Z-zip Stop was located on the southeast corner of the village’s Main and Silver Street intersection.  Previously, there had been a car lot on that corner that once had been used for the garage located across the street.  Next to the corner lot, was an old two-story building that last housed storage for parts and an office for Jack Caucutts’ plumbing business.  Next to that was another two-story building that had housed the offices of the Epitaph newspaper.  Both of those old buildings were torn down to make room for the new gas station.  After the Z-zip Stop opened, that corner soon became the busiest place in town.

            Gary Leis was the guiding force behind the new business in La Farge and provided the money for the construction.  He was the owner of Leis Oil in Viroqua and ran a similar gas station/convenience store on the north side of that city as the one he was building in La Farge.  When interviewed for an article that appeared in the January 22, 1987 issue of the Epitaph-News, Leis said the La Farge station/store would be similar to a Kwik-Trip or Quik Stop operation.  The business would be housed in a 64’ x 34’ building and would include a full line of convenience items, ranging from coffee and soda pop to basic groceries. 

            Leis went on to say that an in-store delicatessen would also be part of the business with fresh sandwich specials everyday and pizza for sale by the slice or pie.  He also said that the deli operation selections would depend on “what business in La Farge requires”.

            Leis added, “We’ll be installing two dual pumps for regular and unleaded gas.  We plan to feel it out for the size of La Farge.  If business calls for more pumps, we’ll put them in.  We won’t blacktop the lot until it settles, so putting in extra pumps shouldn’t be a problem.”  A diesel fuel pump was also added when the business was first built.

            Leis planned to have the store open daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., but added that could change.  “We’re going to adapt our store to the needs of La Farge.  I don’t know what the economic impact will be, but I have high hopes or I wouldn’t be doing it.”

            Needless to say, the economic impact of the new business was HUGE (going Donald Trump here) for the little village.  In many ways, the Z-zip Stop, so new to La Farge, was old-fashioned in its hours and service.  Being open every day for seventeen hours a day harkened back to a time when many La Farge places of business kept those same kinds of schedules to meet the needs of their customers.  Businesses stayed open late for the farmers coming to town after the evening chores or for the laborer working late at the sawmill.  More than once in the village’s history, there were disputes between the churches and the business places about being open on Sundays.  But the businesses stayed open for the most part to accommodate the customers who couldn’t shop on any other day but Sunday because they worked twelve hours a day or more on the other six days of the week.

            So, it took until Tuesday afternoon for me to figure out that the Z-Zip Stop was actually open!  You just had to use the back door to get in.  The new gas pumps had arrived late Monday afternoon and they had been moved to another spot nearer Main Street by Tuesday.  They were still in the same place on Wednesday, but the site was nowhere near ready for installation of the pumps.

            Z-zip Stop owner Shane Nottestad (he had purchased the business from Leis in 1993) was nowhere to be seen as the construction progressed slowly onward.  But by Thursday the pumps were lifted into place atop their concrete pedestals and by late that evening, there was a way for the villagers to buy gas and diesel fuel once again!  That night cement was being poured between the pump island and the store.  More of that cement work followed on Friday.  That morning, the way was open to access all the new pumps from the Main Street side.   The village was saved from its gas deprivation!