La Farge Organizes To Back Dam Project

“Emotions and tempers ran as high as a Kickapoo flash flood when it was learned here last week that Governor Lucey had set the date of April 27 for an intensive review of the Kickapoo Lake Project.” 

Thus began the coverage of the La Farge dam project controversy in the April 22, 1971 issue of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper.  The local weekly was full of news on how the people in the village and surrounding area were organizing to show support for the dam project.  Editor Arnie Widstrand wrote an excellent editorial listing several reasons to support the embattled project.  Jackie Thelen, the Senior Editor of the LHS student newspaper, The Windjammer (published each week in the Enterprise), wrote an editorial also supporting the dam project.  The village newspaper contained a press release from the Kickapoo Valley Association calling on all people in the Valley to support the dam project.  A huge ad in the newspaper shouted out, “SHOW YOUR CONCERN ABOUT THE KICKAPOO LAKE PROJECT”.  A group called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo Area” paid for the advertisement, which called for people to write letters to Governor Patrick Lucey to show support for the dam project.

The reaction to the announcement of the Governor’s “intensive review” of the La Farge dam project created immediate concerns in La Farge, especially among the pro-dam majority.  Within days after the announcement, a group called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo River” (later called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo Area” and eventually shortened to a more manageable “Citizens For The Kickapoo”) was formed to counter the opposition to the La Farge dam and lake project.  Arlen Johnson, who ran the funeral parlor in town, was chosen as the spokesman for the group and Robert Vosen, who sold insurance out of his home office on Bird Street in La Farge, was selected as the chairman of the group.

The new pro-dam group began by organizing an immediate letter-writing campaign that reached out to dam supporters in the Kickapoo Valley and throughout the state and beyond.  Everyone was asked to write a letter to Governor Lucey asking for his support for the project at La Farge.  Within weeks hundreds of pro-dam letters had poured into the Governor’s offices in Madison.  The new group also started to solicit donations for the public relations effort and $1,500 was raised in a matter of days to support the cause.  With the funds, radio and newspaper advertisements were purchased, spreading the message to support the dam project at La Farge.  Organizational meetings were held daily in the village as the pro-dam forces in La Farge continued to mobilize.  Letter writing sessions were held each day and evening to help with people getting the word out to support the dam and lake project.  A lady’s church group held a prayer vigil asking for guidance for elected leaders so they could support the dam and lake project.  School children made signs supporting the project as part of their class assignments and then carried the signs that read “Save The Dam” and “Save Lake La Farge” along La Farge’s Main Street after school.

At one of the first meetings of the La Farge pro-dam group, a surprise visitor was Congressman Vernon Thomson, who restated his firm support for the dam project at La Farge.  Thomson, a Republican from Richland Center, also castigated Governor Lucey for interfering with the project and said it was “callous of the Governor to deny rural America of benefits”.

The La Farge pro-dam group wanted more information from the Governor’s office about the review meeting scheduled for later in the month.  Blake Kellogg, Governor Lucey’s press secretary, spoke to the leaders of the La Farge group several times by telephone and then came to La Farge to meet with them.  He was faced with an angry group of fifty people at the meeting held in the basement community meeting room of the La Farge State Bank.  Kellogg tried to assure the people gathered there, which included all the leaders of the pro-dam group, that the review session would be a fair and open process and all sides would be heard.  He vowed that the review would not be conducted like a “kangaroo court”, that all sides and voices would be heard and that the purpose of the review was to “put the full issues out on the table, so Governor Lucey can see the pros and cons on either side”.  Kellogg, a professional at public relations, smoothed some ruffled feathers in the crowd that day, and left with a much greater appreciation of how important the dam project was to many people in La Farge.

On Saturday night, April 24^th, over 500 people gathered at the school gym in La Farge for a public meeting on the dam project.  Sponsored by the local pro-dam group, the attendees at the meeting were overwhelming in favor of completion of the dam and lake at La Farge.  Fifteen proponents of the dam spoke that night at the meeting and the rhetoric and emotion was heated.  The merits of the dam and lake were praised and the Governor’s interference was condemned.  “Professional panic-peddlers who call themselves ecologists” were vilified for stirring up the controversy.  Another speaker called for a “David and Goliath battle” as the Citizens For The Kickapoo took on the potent nationally financed conservation and environmental groups.  “These so-called environmentalists who don’t have to scratch a living out of these hills have no right to determine the future of these people”, said Arlen Johnson in referring to the anti-dam groups.  As the meeting wound down after several hours, more donations were collected to help finance the pro-dam cause, signatures were collected on petitions and instructions and addresses for writing letters of support for the dam project were distributed.

During that April of 1971, in the few weeks before the Governor’s review meeting, La Farge was a hubbub of various activities to show support for the dam project.  Posters appeared in most of the storefront windows on Main Street businesses.  School children continued to walk the streets of La Farge (sometimes during recess and noon hour of the school day) carrying signs of support and marching for the dam project.  The daily planning meetings often drew representatives from the Corps’ St. Paul office to further explain the merits of the dam and lake project.  After much agitation by the Citizens For The Kickapoo with the Governor’s office, Robert Vosen’s name was added to the list of those allowed to speak at the Governor’s review meeting.  Finally, a La Farge leader would now be able to relate a local perspective at the “intensive review”.

Next time, we will look at how that review session, held in Madison at the state capital, brought together the two opposing sides on the La Farge dam issue.  For the first time, the dam and lake project would be measured with the newly defined parameters of the emerging national environmental movement.  For the pro-dam backers from the Kickapoo Valley, the review session illuminated the landscape of the debate over the federal project.

Taking La Farge's Inventory

TAKING A TOWN’S INVENTORY

            When doing historical research on a particular place over a long period of time, one occasionally has to pause and take an inventory of where you are.  It is easy to get lost in the minutia of a place’s details that is often the joy of research.  That little tidbit of an item found in the local newspapers “Personals” from forty years ago might be a gem for the researcher to savor.  But every once in a while, one has to put down those tidbits and gems and take a long look at the big picture.  In the case of my research on the history of La Farge, one needs to stop and take the town’s inventory every so often.

            I am just finishing the process of researching in the clipping files of the last fourteen years of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper.  The Enterprise was La Farge’s weekly newspaper from 1898 until 1973 and the various publishers kept the yearly clipping files, which contained a copy of each issue of the paper.  Arnie Widstrand was the last publisher of the Enterprise and the files remained in the Widstrand family’s possession.  Sarah Gudgeon, Arnie’s daughter, loaned me the Enterprise files from 1960 through 1973, which I used extensively when I was writing my book on the La Farge dam project.  Sarah needs the files back for some of her family research, so I have been finishing up my research in them before returning them to her.

            My research in those files from fifty years ago has really been a relevant trip back in time for me as the newspaper covered an era when I was growing up in La Farge.  Those issues chronicled the years of my attending and graduating from high school in La Farge, going away to college in LaCrosse, moving away to teach in Cambridge, Wisconsin and returning to La Farge in the fall of 1972 to teach at my alma mater.  In the last few weeks as I have been pouring through those issues of the Enterprise, I have been filling up notebooks with gems and tidbits from those times.  I now need to stop and take stock in what I have.

            One way to take a town’s inventory is to look at the business or commercial district in the place.  Since there are generally no business directories or maps available for that assessment of La Farge, the task can be a tad daunting at times.  But the year-end issues of the newspapers provide a nice tool for the inventory.  Back then (and this stretches back to the very beginnings of the newspaper and the town), nearly all places of business in La Farge would place ads in the Enterprise at Christmas and New Year’s.  The Christmas week ads wished all of their customers the best in the holiday season and the next week there was another ad wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year.  The business ads were so large and numerous that the newspaper would often have to expand by a couple of pages to get everything included in those issues.

            When looking at these holiday advertisements placed in the village newspaper, one can see what businesses were operating in La Farge at the particular time.  By going to the year-end issues of the Enterprise from other years, one can start to plot some transition in the village from one era to another.  When looking at those particular holiday ads from seventy-five years ago (1937), fifty years ago (1962) and forty years ago in 1972, one can trace continuity and change in La Farge’s Main Street business district.

            Continuity may be in the form of holiday ads for the same business over all of those years.  The Nuzum Lumber Company would be one of those places of business stretching through the years from 1937 to 1972 and another would be the La Farge State Bank.  (Interestingly, both of those places of business are still operating in the village to the present day.)  The Lounsbury Drug Store is another business found in all of the past issues during that time span.  That business even touts its longevity because Harry Lounsbury’s 1972 holiday ads for his drug store boast of  “41 years of service to the La Farge Community”.

            Continuity can also be observed by looking at the same business operated by different people over the years.  La Farge’s funeral parlor is a good example.  In 1937, Gene Calhoun is the village undertaker, while in 1962 John Ferries is operating the funeral parlor in town, having purchased the business from the Calhoun family.  By 1972 Arlen Johnson, who purchased the business from Ferries, is providing the village’s mortuary needs.

            One could also trace the continuity of a business by looking at the businesses in a particular building.  Since the present La Farge Hardware Store is the oldest building located on Main Street, looking at the businesses in that building over the years can be a way of plotting the continuum.  In 1937, there was a Gamble Agency store in that building, while in 1962 Mick’s Hardware was there and ten years later in 1972, it was the home of Rose Hardware.

            Great change is also evident when surveying the holiday ads from those different years.  In looking at the holiday business ads from those years between 1937 and 1972, one can see the change that takes place over the years in a small town’s business district.  Places come and go; some holiday business ads only appear in one of the year-end issues, but no more.  In 1937, La Farge had holiday ads for a Koffe Kup Kafe (I’m assuming the owners last name may have started with a “K”?).  In the 1962 issues, ads for the Mars Theater appear and in 1972, there are ads for Kickapoo Gifts operated by Colleen Sullivan.

            And so it goes.  Time passes by for a community and the sand is out of the old hourglass for 2012.  Bring on 2013.