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!

La Farge's Calhoon Park

Last week I received a phone call from Tim Slack. Tim is the guidance counselor at La Farge Schools and also is the coach of the Wildcat baseball team.  It seems that he had just talked to a sports reporter at WKBT-TV in La Crosse who was interested in doing a story for his sports show about La Farge’s baseball field – Calhoon Park.  He wanted to know all about the history of the ball field and since Tim has only been around La Farge for a couple of years, he didn’t have much information on the baseball field.  I said that I would help.

            I started digging into the research notes for my La Farge history and found some information on the construction of the ballpark, which took place back in the 1930’s.  I copied some material that I had included in the first volume of my La Farge history.  The construction of the park makes for an interesting story because it did not come easy.  The driving force behind getting the ballpark completed was Ray Calhoon – a legendary figure in the history of baseball in this little river town.  I also had information on Calhoon so I made a copy of that story as well.

            On Thursday afternoon, Charlie Clifford, the WKBT (Channel 8) reporter and a cameraman, Greg White, met me at the ballpark.  Roger Hooker joined us.  Roger had the original plans for the ballpark as drawn up by Ray Calhoon.  (It is said that Calhoon used Chicago’s Wrigley Field as the model for the ballpark in La Farge.  Ironically, Charlie had been at Wrigley Field the night before to watch the Cubs-Mets game.)  Roger was also the LHS baseball coach for nearly two decades so he had his share of stories to tell about the ballpark.  The cameraman filmed the baseball game going on that day between North Crawford and La Farge from every angle imaginable.  He particularly liked shooting the game from the football press box beyond the centerfield fence.  Charlie Clifford conducted several interviews with people about the ballpark. 

            So what’s the fuss all about to draw all of this media attention about La Farge’s old ballpark?  We will need to go back to the 1930’s, to a time when Works Progress Administration (WPA) federal funds were available to use on local projects.  La Farge, like many of the villages along the Kickapoo, made use of the WPA funds to hire local men to work on a variety of projects.  Arch Davidson, the village president of La Farge at that time, used the first influx of WPA money to hire crews to fix up the village’s streets.

            But another federally supported project in La Farge would have an even more lasting impact on the village.  Using money from the WPA, La Farge would construct a new baseball field that would be a marvel lasting to the present.  The new field was the dream of Ray Calhoon, a longtime player, manager and backer of baseball in La Farge, and the new ballpark was named in his honor when it was completed.

            The Kickapoo River flood of 1935 played a large role for La Farge to get the new ballpark.  The town’s old baseball field was located south of La Farge on ground right next to the river, which made it very susceptible to flooding by the Kickapoo.  That ball field, originally a pasture on the Slayback farm, was rented and maintained by the La Farge Athletic Association.  (The group would later incorporate as the La Farge Baseball Association with Ray Calhoon as a prominent member and officer.)  That group laid out a baseball diamond along the river, built wooden grandstands with seating for several hundred people, and mowed the outfield and a parking area for automobiles.  Periodic flooding from the river caused a near yearly battle by Calhoon and others to keep up the ball field.  The 1935 flood was the last straw as the field was devastated by the record high floodwaters.  The grandstands were wrecked beyond repair and the baseball diamond was completely washed away by the floodwaters.  The La Farge town baseball team, which was in the process of trying to win a county championship that summer, would never play on the old ball field next to the river again after that great flood of August 1935.  (The story of how that 1935 La Farge town baseball team went on to win the county championship without the benefit of a home field to play on is an amazing one.)

            In the summer of 1936, the town team played all their games at the baseball field located to the east of the school – what was then known as the high school field.  Perhaps that location gave Calhoon and Village President Davidson the idea for the new ballpark because in October of that year the village purchased six and one-third acres of land to the west of the schoolhouse for a new athletic field. 

Using WPA funds, work was begun immediately on the new facility.  Twelve men working with six teams of horses broke ground that fall on the new athletic complex.  Original plans called for a baseball field with covered grandstands and dugouts, a six-lane, quarter-mile cinder track for holding track & field meets, and a swimming pool to be located on the grounds.  The baseball field and track were to be constructed first with the pool coming as a later phase of the project.  The athletic complex would lie adjacent to the new high school gymnasium, also being built with the help of WPA funding, which was nearing completion in the fall of 1936.  In two months of work before the snows came, the work crews leveled the area, moving thousands of feet of dirt for the track and ball field areas.

            The plans called for the ball field to “rival even those in the big leagues”.  The dimensions for the new fields were 365’ to the left and right field foul poles and 472’ to dead centerfield.  A cement amphitheater with a wooden cover was constructed in an oval shape directly back of home plate with cement wings, which included more seating extending along each baseline towards the dugouts.  Seating capacity was to be just under one thousand at the new park, with ample parking for automobiles behind the grandstands.  Calhoon had a local artist paint a wall-sized mural of the new ball field.  The painting was displayed in the Chase Brothers store (where Calhoon worked) on La Farge’s busy Main Street intersection and it showed a ball field that would be the show place of western Wisconsin.

            1937 was a tough year for WPA projects all over the country as the newly elected Congress in Washington D.C. struggled with the various spending bills.  The La Farge ball field project stalled when federal money didn’t come through as promised and eventually the track and pool construction was shelved due to this lack of federal funding.  To keep the new ball field project going, La Farge President Davidson spearheaded an appropriation from the village to help pay for worker’s wages and materials for the new ballpark.  The use of local tax money on the project caused a furor from opponents of the new ballpark.  Once again letters appeared in the La Farge Enterprise newspaper condemning a “work welfare” project and the use of local tax dollars on the “Big Mud Hole” next to the school.  One letter writer referred to the project as “Calhoon’s Folly” and the editor of the newspaper called for a new village president.  The 1937 spring election races were heated and the local newspaper supported Lester Wood for village president to replace Arch Davidson, who was running for reelection.  In a campaign letter published in the Enterprise, Wood voiced guarded support for the new ball field project, but questioned the use of local tax dollars for the project.  With the most voters ever participating in a village election, Davidson retained his village president position by a mere handful of votes.

            In 1938, the village would have to spend additional money on the ball field project, but as that summer ended most of the stone work on the grandstands, walkways, retaining walls and dugouts was completed.  The following spring, the finishing work of grading and graveling the parking areas and putting up the fence around the ballpark was done.  On April 28, 1939, the La Farge town team played its first baseball game at Calhoon Park.  (The local lads lost that inaugural game in their new ballpark to a team from Melvina.) 

Ray Calhoon helped manage the local nine that day at the new ballpark; his dream had become a reality.  

Population Numbers

According to the numbers from the United States Census Bureau, the population of the village of La Farge peaked in 1940 at 921. From that point the village’s census population figures dropped steadily to a low point of 746 in 1980. That was a drop of 175 inhabitants and a decrease of 19% in that forty-year period.

Finding the population numbers for La Farge over the years of its existence has been an interesting part of the research on this little history project of the village. Finding the numbers is a relatively easy process. The actual records of the various census findings are online at various sites up through the 1950 census. Wisconsin’s Blue Book usually lists current census records for the years they are published and most of those volumes are also online.

The saying goes that “The numbers don’t lie”, but as we are finding out with the 2010 census currently under way, census numbers are often far from accurate. When learning that the La Farge Post Office had to return boxes of census forms with inaccurate addresses recently, I think I’ll take the accuracy of the 1910 census over the one currently under way.

In that census from one hundred years ago, you can clearly read the tallies at each household recorded by the census taker, Ray Calhoon. One can imagine him walking the streets of the village and penciling in the names of the head of household, usually the father of the family, his wife and children (arranged in order by age from oldest to youngest), and others who lived in the house (often relatives such as grandparents or cousins). There were no addresses on the 1910 census forms as most people picked up their mail at the post office located on south State Street in the Millard building. One page of Calhoon’s postal tally followed along that street south of Main Street in 1910 and recorded the village’s population house by house. When he arrived at the last house near the bridge over Bear Creek on the south end of town, he crossed the street and started back up the other side. Street by street, he counted noses in the little river town, coming up with a total of 654, which was an increase of 34% over the 1900 population of the village which was 488.

The 1910 tally might have actually startled some residents of La Farge as being too low. In 1905 a state census had shown La Farge’s population was 827. That was an increase of 339 over the 1900 federal figures, or an astounding rise of nearly 70%! These population numbers were reflecting the tremendous growth of the village in its first decade of existence. In newspaper articles of that time, the village was often said to have a population exceeding one thousand. Although the village’s census populations don’t show that figure, if one were to figure in those living in the Town of Stark, that century mark was easily achieved.

The Town of Stark had a population of 1,033 as reported by the 1890 federal census. By 1900, the township’s census number had dropped to 907, but if you include La Farge’s 1900 census number of 488 (La Farge was incorporated in 1899 and separated from the Town of Stark at that time), then the total living in what had been the township was 1,395. By 1910 that combined La Farge/Stark population number had increased to 1,467 people, and ten years later in 1920 it hit a high of 1,925 people. During that decade between the 1910 and 1920 census, the population of the village of La Farge had increased by over 20% while that of the surrounding township had risen 40%.

If, in fact, “The numbers don’t lie”; what caused the phenomenal growth in the little river town and the township which surrounded it? First, we need to remember that by 1920, American farmers, through advanced agricultural methods and technology and with the devastation in Europe caused by the First World War, were feeding much of the world. The grains, livestock, and dairy products of the Kickapoo Valley farms were part of this process and farming in the La Farge area was probably at its peak. (Tobacco was also being grown as a cash crop by many La Farge area farms by this time, also.) The village was strategically located as the northern hub of an efficient transportation system, the Valley’s railroad line and was providing all of the area’s farms with efficient markets for their products and a retail business district to provide for their needs. Coupling the farm markets and the retail operations with a still strong lumber industry in the village, La Farge was a bustling community.

By 1930, the Great Depression was at its worst and its affects on farm prices had been felt years before the stock market crash of 1929. The census for 1930 showed the combined populations of the village (756, down 4%) and the township (993, down 144 people from a decade earlier) at 1,749, down 9% from the previous census. The population numbers would continue a steady decline from 1930 on, especially in the township. Between 1920 and 1960, the Town of Stark saw its population decrease by 650 people (from 1,137 down to 487), a drop of 57% in forty years. Numerous changes in farming over those years, from modern machinery allowing for fewer people to farm more acres to various government set-aside programs, meant fewer people on La Farge area farms.

The village grew during the 1930’s and the 1940 census population of 921 was the highest ever. With the outbreak of World War II, La Farge, like every village in America, underwent tremendous change. Many have said that the population of the village was at its highest right after the conclusion of the war and was probably over one thousand at some point. With the many men and women who had been in the military service and war related jobs returning to La Farge, the village faced a housing crisis. Government-issue trailers were brought in and a temporary housing camp was set up in the field that today is the school’s parking lot. The actual 1950 census showed La Farge with a population of 905.

With the loss of the surrounding farming community’s population, the village’s population also started a steady decline between 1950 and 1970. Losing nearly a fifth of its population in those two decades, La Farge finally stabilized near 750 people by 1970 and has stayed close to that number ever since.

The Town of Stark hit its nadir in population in 1990, bottoming out at 259. The township had by then lost nearly a fifth of its farms to the federal government through the La Farge Dam Project. The acquisition of those properties in the township and the subsequent loss of population as the families left their farms occurred from 1968 through the early 1970’s.

In the last census, the population of Stark was up ninety people, and increase of nearly 35% from ten years earlier. The village’s 2000 census saw a modest 3% climb from twenty years earlier.

Some of those houses along south State Street where Ray Calhoon stopped in 1910 to count people for the census have recently been torn down. They were the victims of the great Kickapoo River flood of 2008. Razed and hauled away to the landfill, those residences are a memory now of another time. The numbers don’t lie.