A MYSTERIOUS DEATH - PART I

As I was preparing to finish up on my first local history book, prior to it being printed in 2010, I received a call from LaVerne Campbell.  He wanted me to stop into the C & S Motors garage building sometime so we could talk about something from the past that had happened in La Farge. Actually, LaVerne really wanted to talk to me about one specific event, a mysterious death that occurred in the village in October of 1947. 

             The conversation with LaVerne took place sometime in 2009 and the following May, I met with Dick Johannesen at his house in Viola to talk about La Farge’s history. During that talk, Dick brought up another recollection of his own about that mysterious death that LaVerne had wanted to talk about.  So, armed with those conversations and the newspaper stories of the day, let’s go back to that time.

            The Post-World War II years were a vibrant time in La Farge.  As the men and women who had served in the armed forces during the war were discharged, most returned to their hometown.  Many were recently married and starting families.  La Farge, like many small towns during that time, was immediately hit with a housing shortage – there were virtually no vacant houses or apartments available.  A housing boom began in the village as new houses were being built along every street, particularly those north of Main Street.  However, due to a nation wide shortage of building materials at the time, building new homes was a slow process.  It took time for those houses to be completed and immediate housing needs still had to be met.

            In January of 1946, La Farge municipal leaders learned that the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) would provide the village with ten temporary housing units (trailers).  The FHA trailers (available from military bases after the war ended) would be loaned to the village with the idea that military veterans would get preference to live in them.  The La Farge village board appointed a committee to purchase land for the new trailer houses.  Soon after, several lots just to the south of the schoolhouse were purchased for the housing project.  (This property is currently the school parking lot just to the south of the gymnasium.)  

            The village was also responsible for providing any rough grading, street access and utility lines to the property.  In March, La Farge Village President Finn Johannesen (Dick’s father) and board member Bill Adams went to Chicago and signed the FHA papers so that La Farge would get the trailers.

            In mid-July the ten trailers arrived in La Farge. Because some of the trailers did not have any water or toilet facilities, the FHA also constructed a building on the grounds that housed showers, bathrooms and a laundry for those who lived in the trailers.  Eight of the trailers were standard models (22 feet long by 7 feet wide), large enough for one or two people.  The other two trailers (double-wide’s at 18 by 20 feet) were expandable and large enough to house a small family.  The FHA set rents for a trailer at $15-20 per month, while the FHA also paid the village for all property taxes and utility fees.  The new trailer camp was filled and operational by the end of August. 

            For the next several years, the trailer camp was usually occupied to capacity.  But as more new houses were built in La Farge in those post-war years, the trailers, because of their size and limited amenities became less desirable.  After a few years, the federal government became less involved in providing housing for WW II veterans as well.  In April of 1949, the FHA gifted all of the buildings at the trailer camp to the village of La Farge.  As more and more of the trailers became vacant, the village decided to sell them.  On October 17, 1950 an auction was held at the site and the ten trailers were sold and soon moved.  The utility building remained on the site.

            The school district bought the trailer park lots after the auction.  The utility building remained on the site and when football was started at LHS in the fall of 1956, the building was used to store the player’s football equipment. The new Wildcat football team also used the shower room and bathroom facilities in the utility building that inaugural year.  

            During the evening of Wednesday, October 22, 1947, an incident occurred in the trailer camp in La Farge.  Two people were shot during the evening and one man died. Here is the front-page story about the incident as printed in the October 30^thissue of the La Farge Enterpriseunder the headline:

Vincent Campton Dies Thursday Night at Viroqua

            Vincent La Verne Campton, 26, passed away at the Viroqua hospital Thursday night, as the result of a self-inflicted wound he suffered Wednesday night.  Campton shot himself through the heart following a quarrel with his wife, Thelma, during which he shot her in the leg.

            Mrs. Campton had gone to the trailer park near the school to visit her father, Ted Rolfe, after quarreling with her husband.  She had left the trailer home of her father to go to a neighboring trailer occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Keller.  Campton followed her there and renewed the quarrel.  After striking her he shot her just above the knee with a .22 rifle.  He then ran a short distance from the trailer and shot himself, the bullet piercing the edge of his heart.  Mrs. Keller was a witness to the shooting of Mrs. Campton.

            Mrs. Kellar called Mervin Erickson, who was on duty as night watchman, and Dr. Gollin.  Sheriff Morris Moon was called to the scene.  The Campton couple was taken to the Viroqua hospital, where Campton died Thursday night.

            Campton was a veteran of World War II.

            Mrs. Campton is expected to recover.

            I need to add some clarification before we continue. Velma Kellar, (last name is misspelled a couple of times in the article), who witnessed the shooting of her friend Thelma that fateful night, called Mike Erickson, who had the night shift as the village policeman (identified in the article as a watchman).  Dr. Frank Gollin, the village’s doctor at the time, was also called to the scene and arranged transportation to the hospital in Viroqua for both people who were shot.  Another article in the next day’s (October 23) LaCrosse Tribunesaid that Vincent “Campton had not regained consciousness at the time he was moved”.

            There is another side to this story, actually an almost completly different version that was told to me by both LaVerne Campbell and Dick Johannesen.  Next time in the “Local History Notebook” we will look at the other version of what happened that evening in the La Farge trailer park.

Lights For Calhoon Park

(This is a conclusion to a previous post about La Farge's historic ballpark, Calhoon Park.)

So, the 76^th season of baseball at Calhoon Park will probably be remembered as the year that the ballpark was featured on LaCrosse’s WKBT – Channel 8 television station.  The video segment first aired on the Channel 8 Sports’ 6 pm report on Monday, May 18.  Charlie Clifford narrated the story of La Farge’s ballpark using video shot by cameraman Greg White.  The story of La Farge’s ballpark was well told and the video soon was posted on WKBT’s webpage (www.News8000.com).  From there it was posted on various Facebook sites and the story was passed around on the Internet for all to see.  Folks from California to North Carolina contacted me about the video – all enjoyed the story.

            It’s also an interesting story as to how the television coverage came to be in the first place.  As usual, it’s Lyle Dorschied’s fault – just kidding.  Recently, Liberty Mutual Insurance named Lyle the national “Fireman of the Year”.  It was a big deal around here for Lyle and the La Farge Fire Department, which benefited from a $10,000 donation from Liberty Mutual in honor of Lyle’s award.

            Greg White, Channel 8 cameraman and local sports aficionado, was in La Farge for the announcement of Lyle’s award.  Driving on the way to lunch at Rockton, White spied the ball field next to the school and Lyle started to fill him in on some of the history of the historic baseball field.  The cameraman returned to LaCrosse, pitched the idea of a story about the ballpark at La Farge to the WKBT sports staff, and as we are want to say in this column – the rest is history.

            White and Clifford came to La Farge and filmed during a La Farge-North Crawford high school baseball game on Thursday, May 14^th.  White filmed the park from many different perspectives and Clifford interviewed several people about the park.  Clifford particularly liked the idea of generations of La Farge family members who had played at the Calhoon Park.  The video included interviews with Ben Jacobs, who played baseball that day for the Wildcats, and Maverick Nelson, a manager for the Wildcats, who was also keeping the scoreboard for the game.  Both told about how generations of their families had played at Calhoon Park.  I also ended up in the video to give some background about the history of the ballpark.

            In the last Local History Notebook, I related some of the story of how the ball field came to be built during the 1930’s.  It was not an easy project to complete, partly because of the on again/off again nature of the WPA federal funding for the project.  Through the efforts of Village President Arch Davidson and Ray Calhoon, who designed the plans for the park, it was finally finished in time for the 1939 season.  Let’s continue looking at this story of Calhoon Park, this time focusing on the efforts to add lights to the ball field.    

It was 1950 when the lights were added to Calhoon Park.  The communities of Soldiers Grove and Hillsboro  (fierce town team rivals with La Farge) already had new lights for their ballparks and La Farge didn’t want to be left behind.  In early March a public meeting was held at the village pump house to discuss the lighting project.  The Calhoon Park Association was created to facilitate a fund-raising drive to collect money for the new lights for the ballpark.  The new ballpark association then sold shares of stock or subscriptions, as they were called, to pay for the new ballpark lights.  The shares would be redeemed after a time (estimated to be from six to ten years) with a 2% profit added on to the original subscription.  It was hoped that projected admissions and rental fees for the use of the ballpark would eventually pay off the association’s stock.

            Dr. Frank Gollin, who would give the largest contribution to the initial fund drive, and the members of the La Farge VFW post, spearheaded the ballpark lighting project, which had an estimated initial cost of $8,500.  That number comprised the purchase and installation of the metal towers for the lights, the light fixtures, and wiring for the project, with the idea that much of the labor costs would be donated.  After getting approval from the village board, the project was begun and the materials for the new ballpark lights were ordered.  Many of La Farge’s business places donated to the fund and other people contributed their labor on designated workdays, usually held on the weekends, to help with the project. 

Thirty-two holes were dug for the cement bases for the eight light towers.  When the steel for the towers arrived, each tower was put together on the ground and the light fixtures attached.  Then the towers were lifted into place and secured onto the cement bases.  The last phase of the project was the wiring of the towers, with each tower having a separate switchbox.  The lights on each tower were turned on and off from the switchbox.   By the first week of June, the new lights were ready for use. 

A special game between the La Farge “City” team and the touring “House of David” team would inaugurate the new lights at the village’s ballpark.  A huge crowd packed the ballpark to see night baseball at Calhoon Park.  Additional seating had also been added to the ballpark when the lights were put in.  The new seating included sets of wooden bleachers above the concrete seating areas along both the first and third base lines, which increased the seating capacity of the ballpark to more than 1,500.

            Unfortunately, the fund drive to pay for the new lights had not proven nearly as successful as the actual construction of the project.  Spurred by donations of $1,000 from Dr. Gollin, $500 from the VFW and $400 from Arnie Widstrand and the Enterprise newspaper, the total amount of money collected shot up to $4,500 by mid-May.  But there it stopped.  Opposition had arisen during the fund-raising drive as some people objected to the private association taking over control of the public ballpark.  By June when the first bills came due, the ballpark association approached the village board for help.

            At a special board meeting, a decision was made to borrow $11,500 to pay for the lighting project as well as future maintenance and costs of the lights.  A public meeting was held in late June to discuss the issue.  If the village borrowed the money for the lights, they would then lease the ballpark to the VFW or the association for a yearly fee.  That money and revenues from gate admissions would be used to pay off the village’s note at little cost to the taxpayers.  After hearing the proposed repayment plan of the borrowing by the village, most of the people in attendance at the meeting favored the village board going ahead with the financing.  However, the board decided to take the issue to a public referendum vote when presented with a petition bearing 330 names in opposition to the village paying for the lights.  The election vote on the ballpark lighting referendum was held on July 31 and the measure failed by an overwhelming vote of 164-72.  In an article about the special election in the August 3^rd issue of the Enterprise, high taxes in the village were given as the reason for the failure of the ballpark referendum to pass. 

Undaunted by the failure to secure help from the village, the ballpark association and the VFW continued to sell the subscription shares over the next several years to raise money for the ballpark lights.  Eventually Dr. Gollin stepped in once again and contributed more money to finally pay off the bill for the ballpark lights project.  (There was a saying around La Farge after the ballpark lighting payment controversy was finally settled that went, “It may be Calhoon’s Park, but those are Doc Gollin’s lights”.)  In 1956, after the lights had finally been paid for, the Calhoon Park Association turned over the maintenance of the baseball field to the village once again.

PLAY BALL!

FINISHING THAT CHRISTMAS WALK

(In the last blog entry we were taking a walk into the past on La Farge’s Main Street on a busy Saturday night at Christmastime.  The time is in the early 1950’s – a time when the village’s stores were packed with shoppers buying presents for the holidays.  Our stroll had led us down the north side of Main Street, where we had paused in front of the Mars Theater.  As we cross the street and head towards the La Farge State Bank, we will conclude that stroll through years of yore.)

The bank is closed and dark, they are never open at night, 9 to 3 only, Monday through Friday, but little one’s like us wouldn’t go in there anyway. Listen to the music coming out of the Club LaFarge. We can’t go in there either or the tavern across the street, they are not for little kids like us, although my folks occasionally like to stop in after the grocery store is closed. Boy, it looks smoky in Mac’s Pool Hall. We’re not old enough to go in there either, but we can stare through the front windows at the older boys and men shooting pool and playing cards way in the back.

Next door, the Cash Store is really doing a business as the area’s farm families come to town for their weekly purchase of groceries.  Dutch Carpenter will be busy at the cash register tonight. I imagine that things are just as busy at the other two grocery stores in town.  I sometimes help my folks at their store next to the feed mill; I hope Charlie Z. can find his pipe tobacco tonight. Whenever I’m there in the store, he never seems to be able to find it without my help.

            Let’s stop in to Harry Lounsbury’s Drug Store. Harry always has some neat stuff for Christmas, all kinds of boxes of candies and other goodies. Maybe I will buy my Grandma this nice package of talcum powder with a pretty powder puff. Let’s check out the soda fountain to see if any of the teenage couples are sharing a malted or cherry Coke. They all seem to be talking about the big win the Wildcat boys had in basketball last night at Soldiers Grove. La Farge never seems to loose any of their basketball games, but they are supposed to have a really tough one coming up over Christmas vacation with a good team from Onalaska.

            Next door, Doctor Gollin has the lights on in his office and there are people in the waiting room. He seems to work day and night for this little town. We could stick our head in the door and yell up the stairs at the “Central” telephone operator. That’s where Abelt's have the phone switchboard and the operator would place a call for you, especially if you were a country kid and needed a ride home. You wouldn’t even have to tell her the number, as she knows everybody’s number and all the “shorts” and “longs”. Sometimes when the boys are playing a basketball game away, a fan will call her from Gays Mills or wherever and she gets the word out that the Wildcats have won another one.

Another grocery store is next to the doctor’s office; Dick Gabrielson owns this one.  His grocery store is in a new building, made of cement blocks and just put up last year.  There is a line at the cash register here, too.  As we keep walking, we come to another restaurant, the Band Box Café.  I can hear music coming from the juke box in there, so the curtains would be drawn open on the little band box hanging from the ceiling and the mechanical musicians will be playing their little hearts out.  It looks like some of the Wildcat basketball players are sitting at a big table in the Band Box, probably having Pepsi’s, burgers and fries. 

            Let’s stop at the hardware store on the corner and look at the displays in the front windows. Wouldn’t one of those pocketknives be a nice gift to get for Christmas? You could do some serious whittlin’ with one of those beauties. Those are some nifty looking Daisy BB guns, too. A boy couldn’t go wrong receiving a gift like that, although you would have to be careful not to shoot your eye out. I might have to drop some hints to Santa Claus about something like that for a present when he comes to the firehouse for his annual visit on the Saturday before Christmas. There will be a free show that afternoon, too. I’ve heard that they’re going to have a Gene Autry western. Boy, won’t that be a swell day here in town! Maybe we can go ice-skating on the village skating rink right below the firehouse. We could get a good hockey game going with so many kids in town.

            Wow, it’s getting late, it must be way past eight o’clock by now. We had better start for home. Those Christmas decorations hanging over Main Street sure are beautiful. Bright colored lights and fresh evergreen garland wrapped around each pole, too. The Mobil Gas Station on the corner is really busy as cars are being filled up before folks start their trip back home. The lights are on at the shoe shop just down the block.  Mr. Wood is the cobbler and he can repair any kind of shoe or boot at his worktable in the back.

Let’s linger a little at Deibig Motors to look at the new Buick in the showroom. Wouldn’t that be a super gift for a family to get for Christmas! Of course, the Buicks cost more than the Chevy’s, so if you couldn’t afford a new Roadmaster, perhaps you could still “See The USA in a Chevrolet”.

            Leo Smith is closing his gas station for the night; he has finished that last oil change and the car is backing out of the side door right next to where his big red fuel truck is parked on the side street. Look’s like the feed mill is closing, too, as the farmers have loaded up the last bags of grain into their pickups before heading home.  My folks’ grocery store is really jammed with people tonight.  Much too busy in there for a little boy to be running around, so I had better head upstairs.

The night’s business on the bustling little village’s Main Street is starting to slow as snow begins to fall from the sky. Isn’t it a beautiful sight?

            Merry Christmas to all – may you all make it home for the holidays!

More Travers Building History

(This blog entry is a continuation of a story started last time about a building on La Farge’s Main Street.  Built in 1899, the brick veneer building was originally called the Travers Building after its owner Art Travers.  Travers and others operated a variety of business places in the store building during the first twenty years of its existence.   We continue the story of the Travers Building with some of its more recent uses as a hotel annex and the village’s post office. – BDS)

            In its most recent history, the old brick building next to La Farge’s busy Z-Zip Stop convenience store/gas station has been the home to a real estate office, Hometown & Country Realty.  For a few years before that, it was the home of a restaurant for a while.  Both of those types of businesses were reincarnations of former enterprises carried out in the building’s first-floor retail space.

            For over forty years, from 1950 until 1991, that space was occupied by La Farge’s Post Office.  There is an entire generation or two who grew up in the community who will always remember the brick building as the post office.  For much of that time, Mac Marshall Jr. was the postmaster in La Farge, working in a building that his family owned.  There were usually one or more members of the Green family working at the La Farge Post Office in that building as well.  Lester Green was the postmaster in 1950 when the post office was moved from its former location on south State Street (across from the lawyer’s – Ralph Freeze at that time - office).  Lavern and Willard Green also had rural mail routes and for many years worked out of the post office in the brick building, that previously had been known as the Hotel Annex.

            The brick building became part of Mac Marshall’s hotel in the early 1930’s.  Mac’s Hotel was located on the corner lot, two doors east of the brick building (which was still then known as the Travers Building).  Mac’s became La Farge’s only hotel when the Curry Hotel (the old Hotel Ward located on the corner lot which is currently a parking lot for the La Farge Medical Clinic) burned down in June of 1929.  At that time there was still a strong demand for hotel rooms in La Farge.  Teachers who taught at the school in La Farge would often rent rooms in the hotels in town during the school year.  (Fred Mercer, La Farge’s agriculture teacher and coach, was staying in the Curry Hotel when it burned down in 1929.  Mercer, who still lived in Wauzeka at the time, lost all of his possessions except the clothes on his back in the fire.)  Railroad workers also stayed at the La Farge hotels, indeed it was a man named Cox, who was a conductor on the Kickapoo rail line, who first discovered the fire at the Curry Hotel.  There were ten guests at the Curry Hotel on the night that it burned down.

  Mac Marshall needed more hotel rooms, so he purchased the Travers Building to meet that need.  (One source said that Mac bought the property from C. E. Yeomans, who had purchased the Main Street building from the Travers family.)  They called the new acquisition the Hotel Annex and moved the dining room from the basement of the old hotel building over to the first floor of the Annex building. 

Mac’s Coffee Shoppe, as the dining room/restaurant was called then, was a going place in the community.  Besides offering guests in the hotel hot meals three times a day, the hotel’s dining room was also a bakery with homemade pies, doughnuts, cakes and cookies for sale.  A 1929 advertisement in the La Farge Enterprise for Mac’s restaurant also listed candy bars and box candies; tobacco, cigars and cigarettes; and ice cream, soft drinks and fresh fruits for sale.  The ad finished with “School students and Farmers especially welcomed”.

The Hotel Annex dining room was a very busy place in those days.  Mary Lee Muller shared some memories with me about the hotel’s dining room.  Her mother Anna Norris and Maggie Potter were cooks in the hotel dining room and that dining room would be filled with customers during the busy dinner and supper hours.  (Mary Lee also related an interesting story about another of the cooks at the hotel.  Alphreda Lawton cooked at Mac’s and was also a midwife who helped deliver babies in the La Farge area.  One night, Georgia Evans, who lived on the family farm up on Maple Ridge, had to hook up the horses to the family buggy and race down the hill to Seelyburg and then to La Farge to get Alphreda to come help with Georgia’s mother’s birthing.  Then it was a quick ride back to the Evans’ place where Georgia’s baby brother, Pete, was brought into the world.) 

The men who worked for the railroad always ate at the hotel, as did many men who operated businesses on Main Street.  Mary Lee could remember Tony Novy, the village’s blacksmith and Dr. Frank Gollin sitting at the same table each day for lunch.  There were no lunches served at the school at that time, so teachers and students alike would hustle down to the hotel during their noon hour (which really was a full hour back in those days) to eat their lunch.  The hotel’s cook stove was usually going before five in the morning, as the baking had to be done before breakfast was served.  Besides the hotel guests, many people coming into La Farge for work would catch breakfast in the hotel dining room.

 The apartments on the second floor of the Annex building were converted into hotel rooms.  Maxine Shird, who grew up in her folk’s hotel on Main Street, said that the rooms in the Annex were usually reserved for the railroad workers who needed a place to stay.  She said there were usually three or four railroad men staying at the hotel during the week.  When the Kickapoo Stump Dodger made its last run on August 15, 1939 and the railroad buildings and tracks were pulled out of La Farge later that fall, Mac’s Hotel lost some steady customers.

Mac’s Hotel building burned down in 1942 – it was the last hotel in the village.  The Major’s Feed Store building, which was just to the west of the hotel, was burned out at the same time by the hotel fire, but the Annex building survived.  Although the hotel business would not be revived, Mac Marshall continued to rent out the upstairs rooms in the Annex, which were later reconverted back to apartments.  The dining facilities were also rented out and a restaurant remained in the first floor space throughout the 1940’s.  In September of 1950 when that space in the Annex was converted for use as a post office, the Bluebird Café, which had been operating there, moved across the street to the Tony Novy building, located on the northwest corner of Main and Silver Streets.

At a meeting of the La Farge village board held on April 22, 2013, it was decided to order that the old Travers Building be razed and the demolition material from the building moved off the property.  Negotiations are under way for that order to be executed, but neither the building’s current owner, who is in bankruptcy proceedings, nor the lien holder on the building want to incur the responsibility and costs of the demolition.  The village has issued a “Notice And Order To Raze And Remove” and wants the building taken down within a week of the notice.  Regardless of how it happens, the end of an old building in La Farge is near.  The last of the five buildings on the old Central Hotel block will be gone.