In 1972, the community of La Farge
was in a state of transition as work on the Corps of Engineers’ La Farge Lake
and Dam Project continued through the year.
Most of the land needed for the project, located north of La Farge to
the Rockton area and beyond, had been purchased by the government agency by
that time. The families who had lived on
those farms and in those homes were dispersed.
Some of those people remained in the La Farge area; many did not.
There seemed to be a constant
process of farm auctions stretching up the Kickapoo Valley as the people were
displaced from their former homes. Some
of the previous owners rented their own homes back from the Corps on a
short-term basis while looking for another place to call home. Once the people were gone, the Corps listed
the buildings on the vacated properties for sale to the highest bidder. The pieces of the former farmsteads could be
moved or razed; it didn’t really matter to the Corps, which simply wanted the
land emptied of signs of human occupation.
The Corps continued the lease of agricultural fields on the project lands
that summer and many former owners rented their fields back for growing crops
of corn and harvesting cuttings of hay.
In the village of La Farge, the
changes were also apparent as the town prepared for the coming of the waters of
Lake La Farge. In February, the new La
Farge United Methodist Church had been dedicated and consecrated on the site of
the previous church. The old church had
been torn down the previous year to make way for the new place of worship.
One block south from the new
church, the village’s business district underwent significant changes in
1972. Perhaps anticipating the affects
of the dam project on the town, several new businesses opened in La Farge. David Mick began a Mutual Services insurance
agency that summer with offices over his father’s grocery store on the east end
of the business district. Kickapoo
Gifts, a new gift shop featuring work by local artists, opened in the former
grocery store building owned by Dick Gabrielson. Colleen Sullivan operated the shop, which had
hundreds of visitors on its first weekend of business. Don Potter opened a new realty office in town
to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding recreational real estate
market. Markee Soft Water, operated by
Dick Heckart, opened a business in La Farge that summer as did Bobby Kennedy
with his new carpet installation and cleaning service. In addition to new business operations,
several long time La Farge businesses saw changes that year.
A new lawyer came to town that
summer as Phil Stittleburg, fresh out of UW Law School, bought Ralph Freeze’s
law business and moved into the offices on south State Street on June 1. Freeze had practiced law in La Farge for
forty years, having bought the practice from Alva Drew. By fall, Ralph and his wife Isabelle had left
the village to retire in Arizona.
Russell Schroer bought the H &
D Lumber sawmill operation in the summer of 1972. Schroer bought the mill from Clair Russell,
who stayed on with the business to buy logs for the new operation known as
Schroer Hardwood Lumber Company. Lee
Hiles and Russell Davison had started the H & D lumber mill in 1953. The Schroer family with two little girls came
from Stevens Point and moved into a new mobile home placed on the west end of
the Sherrill Huston trailer park next to the sawmill.
One of La Farge’s two remaining
grocery stores changed hands in the summer of 1972 when Orval Howard purchased
the Cash Store from Toby Funnell and Elmer Huffland. Orval, with his wife Jan and two young sons,
moved back to his hometown and the new grocery store was named Howard’s Village
Market.
Lonnie Muller, needing to devote
more time to his fledgling newspaper business (the Epitaph), sold his cable television system to Numsen Master Antenna
Systems out of La Crosse. The new cable
owners soon upgraded the La Farge antenna system and expanded TV channel
offerings to its customers. More TV
choices also meant a higher cost for cable subscribers in La Farge. Those weren’t the only bills going up in La
Farge though. Vernon Telephone phased
out the old party-line phone numbers that summer, and the new single-party
system came with a higher price tag each month.
Earlier in the year, water and electricity rates increased in the
village as the La Farge Utility Company petitioned for and received the
approval to raise its rates.
In August, the cheese factory
business in La Farge changed hands as Warner Creek Cheese Factory owned by Jarry
Glick of Hillsboro purchased the operation from Durward and Ethel Burt. The new owners, who had run the cheese
factory near Valley for thirty years added a Grade A market for La Farge area
dairy farmers to access, while also keeping the cheese making operations going. Richard Glick became the manager of the La
Farge plant and plans were made to add a retail cheese store to the operation,
which was up and running by the end of the year. Richard, his wife and two little girls moved
into the apartment above the cheese factory.
By the
next month, construction had begun on La Farge’s newest business – a motel. Dick and Bea Gabrielson, with Gary Hall
Realty of Viroqua as general contractor, built the new motel one half block
south of Main Street just across the street and to the west of the La Farge Enterprise building. Some delays in construction of the new motel
were caused when flowing wells on the property proved difficult to cap, but by
early November the new building, which featured a residence for the owners and
ten motel units was nearing completion.
The motel became the second new
commercial building on Main Street as Cecil Rolfe had opened his new facility
for making cabinets earlier that spring.
Rolfe’s Cabinet Shop, a 24’ x 60’ cement block building, was located a
block to the west of the new motel on the north side of Main Street between the
Ed Muller & Sons Construction property and the welding shop.
Old buildings in La Farge came down
that fall as well. The building that had
housed Casey Sanford’s Clothing Store on Main Street was torn down in
October. The 24’ x 40’store building
located next to the Band Box Cafe was taken down by Pete and Robert Fish of
Bloomingdale. More demolition was
happening less than a block away as the old Odd Fellows Hall, long a fixture in
the village on the corner of Bird and Penn Streets was also being torn down. The new Methodist Church, needing additional
parking for their expanding congregation, purchased the old lodge building,
located across the street from the new church.
Arnie Widstrand and his children took down the old 24’ x 44’ hall after
an auction was held to sell off the old lodge furnishings.
But 1972 was a time for looking
forward in La Farge instead of back to the past. The dam project pointed towards the
future. In August, LaCrosse Concrete
Company leased two lots from Art Nelson across Mill Street from Nuzum’s. The company soon set up a concrete plant on
the site to provide cement for the construction beginning on the dam project. Art Nelson’s dump trucks were busy bringing
in sand from Oxford, Wisconsin and crushed rock from Elroy to the La Farge
cement plant site. By November the first
cement was poured at the dam site for the construction of the dam’s water
intake tower.
Soon the waters of Lake La Farge
would be lapping along the shores of the Kickapoo Valley as the community made
plans for the future.
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