History Update

I send my apologies to those of you who frequent this blog for not posting any thing for nearly six weeks.  I have been busy, but there is no excusing my absence.  I hope Santa will forgive me for my feeble effort and bring this Kickapoo boy some presents in a couple of weeks.
My little talk at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison on November 10 went unexpectedly well.  I was not anticipating much of a crowd, but there were probably more than 100 in attendance as I talked about the La Farge dam project.  Chuck Hatfield, my amazingly talented co-publisher on my book projects, served as the introducer and also handled a nice slide show that accompanied my talk.  Milton Bates, who wrote a book on canoeing and the history of the Bark River, also was part of the program and it was interesting to meet him and hear of his watershed.
There seemed to have been a number of students in attendance at my dam talk.  Some of them were taking notes, so I imagine some course at UW uses the La Farge dam project as a learning lesson for something.
I recently went to Arcadia, WI and picked up a new printing of my dam book from Supreme Graphics located there.  Carolyn and Chuck rode along and we enjoyed a nice tour of the facilities.  The new printing is very nice as the new cover rendition has a brighter color and the photographs in the book are much sharper than in the first printing.
I have just finished a two-part Local History Notebook for the Episcope newspaper on some history of gas stations in La Farge.  That research proved interesting and after the first part was published, I heard from many people about the topic.
I have been busy researching the clip files of the old Enterprise newspapers, which was La Farge's town newspaper until 1973.  Sarah Gudgeon had loaned me the files for the last twelve years that the paper was printed - 1960-1973.  Her father, Arnie Widstrand was the paper's editor and her mother, Doris, wrote a column in the paper for several years.  All of the files are still in the family, so they are a real treasure of historical information.  I'm finishing up the issues from 1970 right now, so I need to get two and a half more years of La Farge's history out of them as Sarah needs them back for a family history project of her own.

If you would like me to send you one or both of my books, please send a check and your address to me at P.O. Box 202, La Farge 54639.  Volume I of my history is $25, which includes mailing costs and That Dam History - The Story of The La Farge Dam Project is $20.  I can mail both books for $40.

Take care everyone, I'll see you soon (promise) on this history blog.