MURDER OR NOT - PART III

In this conclusion about the strange death of Robert Morris that occurred in La Farge on February 24, 1928, the focus will shift to the legal proceedings to punish a possible murderer in the case.  In the last installment, we learned that several people had come forward to implicate Frank Traister regarding the death of Morris.  Robert Morris had been in the upstairs apartment of Traister, who lived with his family in the Travers Building on La Farge’s Main Street, on the evening prior to his death.  

            Following investigations by the Vernon County Sheriff and a Pinkerton Agency detective brought in for the case, Frank Traister was arrested on an alcohol charge (Traister was known to have run a speakeasy from his apartment).  After questioning in Viroqua by the Vernon County District Attorney, Traister eventually admitted guilt to a 4^thdegree murder (manslaughter) charge and was sentenced for up to two years in the state penitentiary.  So that is where we ended last time, but that is certainly not the end of the story.

            In the March 22, 1928 issue of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper, a front-page headline boldly screams out, “TRAISTER CASE STILL UNSETTLED”.  Under the headline, Enterprise editor B.W. Koob, who had been hesitant to print very many first-hand accounts on the case since its earliest phases writes:

            Reliable and authentic reports regarding the proceedings in the Traister case, have failed to reach this office, as it appears there has been several unforeseen obstacles presented.  The following data is taken from last week’s Vernon County Censor:

            It is interesting to see how often the editor of the Enterprise uses other newspapers’ accounts when covering this story. In his original account of Robert Morris’ death, Editor Koob had a lengthy article about the deadly incident. But in the weeks following the strange death, Koob seems to rely solely on other newspapers for presenting information. This practice will continue as Traister’s legal case plays out over several months.  Let us return to the March 15^tharticle in the Vernon County Censor that Koob had introduced:

            The case of State of Wisconsin vs. Frank Traister, of La Farge, seems to be arousing considerable interest among our citizens.  Proceedings were had before Judge Mahoney on Monday in which the defendant was sentenced to the Penitentiary for from one to two years on a plea of manslaughter in the fourth degree.

            Prior to that time attorneys had been employed to look after his interest, but no notice was served upon his attorneys of any proceedings and upon learning what had taken place his attorneys immediately appeared in court and demanded that he be brought before the court to ascertain whether or not he had entered a plea of guilt understandingly.  The court refused to order the prisoner brought before the court, but affidavits were obtained stating the true facts in the matter, and Attorney Bennett went to Madison and appeared before the Supreme Court, Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., and that court issued an order directing the County Judge to proceed no further in the matter and to grant the defendant the proper hearing that he might be tried on the merits or in the alternative to show cause before the Supreme Court why he should not do that.

            Besides being one amazingly long run-on sentence, that last part of the V.C. Censor article provides some new information in the Traister case.  First, after initially appearing to have had no counsel in the case, Frank Traister subsequently was being represented by one of the top lawyers in Vernon County, J. Henry Bennett.  It is amazing to think that Traister was originally sentenced in the county court without any counsel, but that appears to be what happened. When attorney Bennett heard what had happened to his client, he immediately tried to get Vernon County Judge Daniel Mahoney to change or vacate the charge, but was denied access to the court.  That prompted Bennett to hop in his Model T Roadster (or whatever prominent attorneys drove back then) and head to Madison to get the Wisconsin Supreme Court to issue a legal stop to the proceedings against his client.  The Supreme Court issued an order for the Vernon County Judge “to proceed no farther”.

            I wonder how Frank Traister, who does not seem to have a job since it is never mentioned in any of the articles, could afford to hire a top law firm to represent him.  Perhaps Traister’s father-in-law, Chancy Parr provided the money.  Parr, a distinguished Civil War veteran and President of the G.A.R. Post in La Farge, was married five times.  Frank Traister’s mother was Chancy Parr’s fifth and last wife. I’m presuming that Parr would have had the financial means to hire the Bennett law firm in Viroqua to represent his wife’s son.

            The La Farge Enterprise printed another Vernon County Censor article in the March 29^th issue.  The front-page headline read, STAY ORDERED IN TRAISTER PROCEEDINGS.  The reprinted article followed:

            Viroqua County Censor: All proceedings in the case of Frank Traister, La Farge, execution of whose sentence of from one to two years on a plea of guilty to manslaughter in the fourth degree in connection with the death of Robert Morris on February 24^th, has been held up, have been suspended pending a return to the supreme court writ by Judge D. O. Mahoney ordered for April 7^th.

            Traister, who is still held in the Vernon County jail, was not arraigned in court yesterday to which time the case had been adjourned.  Judge Mahoney has ordered a stay of all proceedings until a return on the alternative writ issued by the supreme court, demanding that the sentence be set aside and Traister given a trial is made.

            From this article in the V.C. Censor, we can deduce that attorney J. Henry Bennett was able to get the Wisconsin Supreme Court to halt the proceedings of the Vernon County Court against his client.  Although still in the Vernon County jail, Frank Traister at least did not have to go to the state penitentiary in Waupun.  Getting a new trial and getting out of jail was another thing all together.

            In the April 19, 1928 issue of the Enterprise, there was this article listed under the headline, “TRAISTER CASE TAKEN UNDER ADVISEMENT”:

            Norwalk Star:Whether or not that Frank Traister, La Farge man being held in Vernon County jail in connection with the death of Robert Morris, also of La Farge, will be admitted to trial over his plea of guilty for manslaughter, will be determined by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

            The Supreme Court on Saturday took the appeal of attorneys under advisement, whether it will issue a peremptory writ of mandamus ordering the Vernon County court to withdraw his plea of guilty, and be tried.

            Attorneys C. J. Smith and J. Henry Bennett, for the defendant, took the case to the Supreme Court on the allegation that Traister was “railroaded” into court to plead guilty unbeknown to his counsel.

            Following the legal proceedings for this case proved to be tricky.  Back in 2013, when I first started research on this murder case, I went to the Clerk of Court’s office in Viroqua to see if they had the records.  The records for that far back (1928) were no longer there, but had been transferred to the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) to be archived.

            The WHS had deposited the old Vernon County court records at the WHS Area Research Center (ARC) at the Murphy Library on the UW-LaCrosse campus.  I had done some previous research at that site, so I made contact with the folks at the ARC to see what they could find.  Ed Hill, retired librarian and local history aficionado, did some digging for me and sent along a copy of the registration of official documents by Vernon County in the case.  From this document, I was able to get a better picture of the time line regarding the legal proceedings.  (Ed Hill later called me about what he had sent regarding the Traister Case.  He said that all of the hearing and court proceedings were on file at the UW-LaCrosse ARC and could be viewed there.)

            The La Farge Enterprise provided the next information on the Traister Case in the May 10, 1928 issue.  Under a front-page headline that read Traister Gets New Trial, the article read:

            The county court of Vernon County must receive the application of Frank Traister to permit him to withdraw his plea of guilty to manslaughter in connection with the death of Robert Morris, also of La Farge, the supreme court held on Tuesday of this week.  Traister is now serving a sentence of one to two years for alleged offense. 

            Traister was arrested on a charge of violating the prohibition laws and while being held in the county jail he was persuaded to plead guilty to manslaughter in connection with the death of Morris. Morris was found nearly dead at the foot of the stairway leading to the living quarters of the Traister family, and is believed to have died as the result of a skull fracture. 

            Traister had an attorney who was told that the only charge against him was the one involving an alleged violation of the liquor laws and this case was set before a justice of the peace.  The attorney waited at the justice’s office but found that while he had been waiting Traister had been induced to plead guilty to a manslaughter charge.

            After Traister’s attorney, J. Henry Bennett, had obtained the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that his client should have a new trail on the manslaughter charges, the Vernon County Court had to act.  On May 16^th papers were filed in the county court as a “Petition of Frank Traister to withdraw plea of guilty and Judgment vacated filed”.  At the same time, an “Order setting aside plea and sentence filed” also appeared on the listing of legal filings in the case.

            Three days later an order was filed in court for the Vernon County Sheriff to continue to hold Frank Traister in jail.  On that same day, May 19, 1928, another order was filed requiring “bail and commitment after arrest and before trial”.  On June 27^th, a notation on the filings in the Traister case notes read, “Bail Bond, certificate of deposit for $500.00 filed”.  By that time it appears that Frank Traister was out of the county jail for the first time since he had been arrested back in early March.

            Traister, this time with his attorneys present, was back in the Vernon County Court in early October.  On the 5^th of that month, an “Affidavit of Order for witnesses of indigent defendant” was filed and a trail was held three days later. The court record shows that Traister was “Tried by Jury who return a verdict of “not guilty”.  The next week’s issue of the Enterprise had a short notice that Judge Mahoney had dismissed the Traister case due to a lack of evidence.  I am assuming that the editor of the La Farge newspaper had it wrong on the outcome of the Frank Traister case, but regardless, Traister was a free man.           

            Although arrested on a “liquor charge” originally, then subsequently sentenced to time in the state penitentiary on a manslaughter charge, Frank Traister eventually was not found guilty of anything.  

            Later in 1928, in an October issue of the La Farge Enterprise, there was a notice in the school news section that May Traister, 2^ndgrade and brother Harold in 4^thgrade had perfect attendance for the first quarter at the La Farge School.  They were the two youngest children of Frank and Cora Traister.

            Life went on, except of course, for Robert Morris.   

Murder or Not? The Death of Robert Morris

Although I have tried to focus on the positive when writing this little history of the community of La Farge, there are some bad things that happened in the town as well.  I have not ignored the negative entirely.  Back in 2010, I wrote about the death of Sam Hook, a storeowner in Seelyburg who died under mysterious circumstances as his general store was being robbed and set on fire.  That two-part Local History Notebook about Sam Hook’s unusual and tragic ending in 1917 detailed how his death was investigated thoroughly.  In the end though regarding the death of Sam Hook, nobody was ever prosecuted for a crime, although Seelyburg residents always contended that he was murdered.

            Eleven years after Sam Hook’s death, another mysterious death took place on Main Street of La Farge.  It involved the death of Robert Morris, who died on February 24, 1928.  The circumstances of Morris’ death and the legal maneuverings that followed make for another interesting story from La Farge’s past.  To begin, let’s look at the story of the death of Robert Morris as told in the March 1, 1928 issue of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper.  The headline on page 1 of the Enterprise read, “Robert Morris Found Lying Unconscious On Sidewalk Friday”. A sub-headline under that lead read, “Both Hands Frozen and Face Covered With Blood”.  The article in La Farge’s weekly newspaper at the time continued:

            Excitement ran high in the village on last Friday morning when the intelligence was passed about that Robert Morris had been found on the street just before daybreak, almost frozen to death.  The unconscious man was first discovered by John Mullett, who chanced to pass by the stairway leading to the second floor of the Travers building, heard a strange sound, at first thinking it might have been a dog that had crawled up the stairway seeking shelter from the extremely cold night air.

            Let me interject here that the Travers building is the former post office in La Farge, the brick building that last housed a real estate office and sat between the current post office and the Zzip Stop. It was torn down a few years ago after it started to fall down.  For more information on the building, check out my Local History Notebook columns when I wrote about it in 2013.  In 1928, the building had a covered outside stairway that led up to the second story apartments.  Now; let’s return to the Enterprise article:

Upon drawing closer, however, Mr. Mullett discovered the sound issued from the numb human, who was lying on the snow-covered walk with his head resting on the lowest step of the stairway.  Mr. Mullet immediately hastened to the Central Hotel next door, and divesting the knowledge of his discovery to those within the hotel, who were already about, lost no time in notifying Marshall Showen, and as quickly as the village official arrived on the scene of the tragedy, he, with two other men, loaded the unfortunate onto a handsled and placed him on the cot in the village lock-up.

            The Central Hotel was located where the present post office of La Farge sits.  Beside the hotel there was another large store building that would have been next to the Travers building.  Both of those buildings burned down during the great hotel fire of 1942.  When Robert Morris was sledded to the jail by Village Marshall Showen and others, they probably only had to go a block or so. Taking the severely injured man to jail seems like a strange choice, especially when you had warm rooms at the hotel right next door.  But there are lots of strange occurrences involving this case, so let’s return to the newspaper story:

Not once since the man was first discovered until life became extinct did he regain consciousness.  Immediately after the man was placed on the cot, Dr. Haggerty was called, but his services were of no avail, as the man’s life ebbed before he arrived.  Parties who remained with the man after he was placed on the bed say that he opened his mouth once or twice, but that was the last and the only sign of life.

            At the inquest and hearing held in the afternoon, conducted by the district attorney and county sheriff, the details of the case were brought out. Depending on the strength of our memory, this is the way we got the run of the dope:

            “Run of the dope”?  That sounds like something from a present day song infused with hip-hop slang. Dr. Eber Haggerty, who was called to the jail to pronounce Morris dead on that cold February morning in 1928, lived a block away from the jail.  His house that contained an office for his medical practice sat across the street from the newly constructed Masonic Temple that would be formerly dedicated later that year.  Meanwhile, back to the story:

            It appears that quite late last Thursday evening Robert Morris mounted the stairway of the Travers building, a portion of the second story of which is occupied by Frank Traister and his family.  Morris, knocking on the door, made inquiry of Frank Traister, who answered the knock, if he could get something to drink.  Upon receiving an answer from Traister in the negative, Morris turned from the door and Traister closed it and went back to his chair.  Perhaps a moment afterward a commotion was heard within the hallway, and upon investigation, it was found that Mr. Morris had fallen down the stairway. With the aid of a second party, Frank Traister carried the man to the doorway of the Central Hotel, where inquiry was made regarding the engaging of a room, but was told that the house had no rooms available.  Morris was then taken back and deposited at the bottom of the stairway, where it was presumed he would soon be able to collect his senses and repair to a place of warmth and shelter for the night.  The accident, as near as we were able to determine, happened about 11:30 in the evening, and if the man remained outside from that time until he was found in the morning around 5 o’clock, small wonder that his fingers and hands were frozen white, when one remembers that a temperature of between 12 and 15 degrees below zero prevailed throughout the night.

            First of all, it is important to know that in 1928, the United States had Prohibition in effect, so there were no bars or taverns in La Farge.  It does seem interesting that Robert Morris goes to the Traister apartment at nearly midnight on a Thursday evening to get something to drink.  Another interesting part of the story was that Frank Traister and somebody else (and don’t you wonder who that person was at that time of the night) carried a badly injured Morris over to the hotel to get him a room. That seems like a decent thing to do. But then Traister and his buddy drop off Morris back at the bottom of the stairs to sleep it off.  There is not much compassion in that determination.

            Perhaps, Traister could have let Morris stay the night in his apartment where the injured man could recover from his fall. At the time Frank Traister and his wife Cora had four children who lived in that second story apartment in the Travers building.  The children were John, aged 14, then there was Floyd, 12; Harold, 9 and little May or Mae (found it spelled both ways) Traister aged 7.  With all of those kids, perhaps there wasn’t any room in the apartment for the injured man?  But wouldn’t you think that Morris could have been laid on the kitchen floor to get him out of that bitter -15 degree cold night?  Frank Traister does not seem to have much compassion for Morris in this situation.  We perhaps will learn more about why that may have been, when other information starts to come out about Frank Traister.  (Don’t forget about little May Traister, the 7-year old daughter – she may be a key in this case.)  The newspaper article continued:

            Arrangements were made Saturday afternoon to conduct the funeral on Sunday, but all such plans were cancelled when those closely related to the deceased were advised by county officials that a post-mortem examination would be held over the body on the following Monday.  It appears that a more thorough and careful search of the premises upon which the tragedy occurred, by village and county officials, brought to light certain complexities connected with the matter which they wished to investigate and to effect a possible solution thereof. 

            Following the post-mortem examination of the body, on Monday afternoon, by local and deputy state medical examiners, the funeral was held Tuesday, at 2 o’clock, at the Free Methodist Church in the village.

            Mr. Morris was a man of close to 40 years of age, and only until quite recently, was in another section of the country, but returned to La Farge last fall and had been making his home with his brother, John.  We have endeavored to report the particulars of this case to the best of our ability.  As is always the case when an accident of this nature occurs, one will hear a great many and different stories, but we have tried to adhere only to those statements brought out at the inquest.

            Thus ended the newspaper article about the death of Robert Morris.  As mentioned in the concluding paragraph, there were many stories swirling around La Farge regarding Morris’ untimely death.  Some of those stories had more merit than others and soon, more stories about that frigid February night on La Farge’s Main Street would surface.  Next time in the history blog, we will continue to look at the unseemly death of Robert Morris.    

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.

FALLING BRICKS

Time ages all things, sparing nothing in its relentless path.  Age provides the sag to once straight rooflines, corners and edges.  Buildings, once constructed to last forever, start to bend and twist with the passage of time.  A couple of weeks ago, the last of the buildings which occupied the Main Street block in La Farge where Mac Marshall’s Hotel once stood started to come down.  On a Saturday afternoon an avalanche of falling bricks cascaded off the west wall of the building into the parking lot at the neighboring Z-Zip Stop.  The gaping hole in the wall stretched from halfway up the windows on the second floor down to the ground level.  The pile of fallen bricks and mortar spread out in a delta of debris at the side of the old building.

            After a quick inspection by local and state officials, the building was condemned and deemed unfit for human habitation.  Two upstairs apartments, rented and occupied when the bricks fell, would be quickly emptied out.  The business housed on the first floor, Hometown & Country Realty, was moved out within days after the bricks fell and a new site in La Farge’s business district is being sought.  The old brick building, sagging with time and twisted and bent with age, awaits the wrecking ball.  (Actually, a big excavator’s bucket and claw will probably pull down the old building, as it’s not quite tall enough to merit a wrecking ball.)

            The old brick building is the last of five two-story buildings used for business purposes on the south side of that block on La Farge’s Main Street.  All of those buildings were constructed in the late 1890’s to meet the demand for commercial spaces needed in the village after the railroad came to La Farge in the fall of 1897. The building was known in those early years of its existence as the Travers Building because Art Travers owned it.

            A.W. Travers came to La Farge from the Woodstock-Bloom City region in 1897, following the railroad into town. A businessman, Travers first rented retail space in a La Farge building located on the village’s busy Main Street.  In the January 7, 1898 edition of the La Farge Enterprise, Travers’ advertisement described his business as a “jobber in hosiery, fancy goods, notions and cigars”.  In May of 1899, Travers teamed with Anson Cowee (who was probably helping with finances) to build a new brick-veneer building.  The 24’ x 44’ two-story structure was located “two doors to the west of the Klondyke Hotel”.  Bricks for the building probably came from the Van Miller brickyard, which was located on the east end of La Farge on Bear Creek.  Travers moved his notions business into the new store building that fall.  The building was large enough for multiple businesses and in September of 1900, the Randall Jewelry Store was relocated to the Travers Building.  The jewelry business changed hands frequently in the next couple of years; it was owned by a McCarty who moved up river from Soldiers Grove and later by Bob O’Neil.

            In December of 1901, a saloon was started in the Travers Building (probably in the space where Travers had his notions store) and operated by John Trappe.  Trappe, who had just returned to his hometown after serving eight years in the Army, ran the saloon on and off for the next three years.  The businesses in the building must have been successful because Travers built a large wooden addition onto the back of the building in July of 1902.  In September of that year, Travers opened a pool and billiard parlor on the second floor of the building.  Joining with Trappe’s saloon and O’Neil’s jewelry store, the brick building then housed three businesses.

            John Trappe’s saloon ran into trouble in 1903.  In February, Trappe was fined $22 for having his saloon open after hours.  Times worsened for saloon trade in La Farge when the village’s citizens voted to go “Dry” in the April, 1903 elections.  All four of La Farge’s saloons were closed the week after the 4^th of July - sort of.  In late September, Trappe and three other “former” saloon operators were arrested for operating “Blind Pigs” in their establishments.  Blind Pigs were illegal no-license saloons operated behind shuttered windows in the evenings.  The village apparently turned a blind eye to the Blind Pigs for a couple of months before cracking down.  Trappe paid his $40 fine and was done with the saloon business.  (The others kept at it, being arrested again later in the fall.  C. E. Yeomans, the drug store owner in La Farge, who was selling liquor illegally out of his store, was arrested two more times before leaving town at the end of the year.)  Art Travers opened a notions & confectionaries store in his building in time for Christmas of 1903.

            When La Farge put in new curb and gutter along Main Street in 1906, Travers had a cement sidewalk put in front of his building in October of that year.  La Farge voted to go “Wet” in the spring of 1907 and in June, five saloon licenses were applied for, one of which was to be located in the Travers Building.  That didn’t last long though as La Farge was back to “Dry” after the 4^th of July in 1908.  Earlier that year, the village had granted Travers a poolroom license for his building and that business, sometimes operated by Anson Cowee, remained there for many years to follow.  In December of that year, S.E. Strait opened a blacksmith shop, the fourth in the village at the time, in the back of the Travers Building.

            Art Travers was involved in many ventures in the village over the years.  He ran a poultry buying business in La Farge beginning in 1908 and often had ads in the Enterprise telling of having railroad cars at the depot on certain dates ready for loading birds.  In November of that year, Travers reported doing $1000 in business that month as a poultry dealer and sending several loaded railroad cars of birds down the line.  Travers was also the village assessor for several years.  Eventually he teamed with a series of partners to run a real estate business from his brick building.  By 1914, Travers was traveling to Sawyer County and other places in northern Wisconsin, buying land for La Farge speculators.  Travers would lead carloads of investors and land buyers to the North to look at land at that time.  He also traveled to the Dakotas and Montana to negotiate land deals in the American West.  Many contracts for purchasing land were signed in Travers’ real estate office in his brick building on La Farge’s Main Street.

            Next time, we will continue to look at the history of the Travers Building including its times as part of Mac Marshall’s Hotel and the home of La Farge’s post office for forty years.  

            If you have memories or photos of the Travers Building or other stories about La Farge to share, contact me at bcstein@mwt.net or P.O. Box 202, La Farge, WI 54639.  Working together we can tell the story of this little Kickapoo River town.