Remembering Glenn Jones

Lots of changes came to America after the conclusion of World War I.  Even though the United States was only involved in “The Great War” for a short time at the conclusion of the conflict, the effects on the country were great.

            When the German leaders signed the armistice on November 11, 1918, the actual fighting ceased, but it also ushered in a contentious time of “making peace” after the war.  American President Woodrow Wilson had laid out a plan for the post-war world in his “Fourteen Points” speech to Congress in January 1918.  Wilson sought to do away with practices that could lead countries into war – such as abolishing secret diplomacy and having treaties be “open covenants openly arrived at”.  President Wilson also advocated for the creation of a “League of Nations” to preserve peace and insure justice for all.

            When the Paris Peace Conference began after the war ended, Wilson was an active participant and became the first American President to travel to Europe.  Although the leaders of the victorious Allies (Great Britain, France and Italy most notably) sought retribution from and punishment for Germany and the other Central Powers, Wilson petitioned at the Paris conference for justice and lasting world peace.  To this end, the formation of a “League of Nations” became a part of the Versailles Treaty.

            In America, the country had to realign the nation’s economy and social order from a wartime footing back to what it was before the 1917 entrance into the war.  Often, it is hard to go back to where you were before – especially on a national scale.  Indeed, some of the American troops stationed in France and the Western Front did not return to their homeland.  Instead, several thousand American soldiers joined with British, French and Japanese forces in fighting in Russia’s Great Civil War from 1918-1920.  The military invasion that invaded Russia was supposed to stop the Communists from taking control there, but the venture proved unsuccessful.

            Back in America, the Russian venture stoked fears that Communists might come after the United States next and fostered a time of mass hysteria known as the “Red Scare”.  Government agencies were created to look everywhere for “Commies” and any disruption were blamed on the “Reds”.  And there were plenty of disruptions in the United States after World War I.

            Labor strife was rampant in America as the country shifted back to a peacetime economy after the war.  During the war, higher wages and benefits had kept the workers of American factories working long and hard to support military and other wartime needs.  Workers did not want to loose what they had which led to strikes across the country.  The police went on strike in Boston and the National Guard was called out to maintain order.  A failed strike against U.S. Steel left 18 workers dead in bloody confrontations.

Racial friction also intensified after the war ended.  During the year after the Armistice, 70 African-Americans were lynched in the United States, including 10 Black soldiers in uniform.  A six-day race riot in Chicago in the summer of 1919 left 38 dead.

  A reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan appeared in America in the 1920s.  The newer KKK was anti-black, anti-foreigner, and anti-Catholic in philosophy and was no longer just an organization of the American South.  The new Klan spread into the Midwest and even the Kickapoo Valley.  (Check my earlier two writings of the “Local History Notebook” published in September 2016 where the KKK in La Farge is discussed.  These can also be found on my history blog.)  

The observance of Memorial Day also changed after World War I.  In 1868, General John Logan had issued an order that May 30^th should be set aside as a day of remembrance for those soldiers who had died in America’s Civil War.  The order by General Logan specifically called “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades”.  Forty years later, America was still celebrating “Decoration Day” at the end of May, but now had a new group of fallen soldiers to remember.  New names were added to the honor roll of fallen warriors that were read in the cemeteries of La Farge.

Soon after the war ended, young men in the military began to return to their hometowns.  Most of the earliest to return were still stationed in training camps in the United States awaiting ships for the crossing to Europe.  By early 1919, some of the men who had been on the Western Front were also returning to the Kickapoo Valley.  One of the boys from La Farge never came back.

Glenn Jones was the son of Reverend D. G. Jones and his wife.  Reverend Jones was the minister for the church at Potts Corners and the family lived on Weister Creek.  Glenn attended high school in La Farge as a “boarding” student (rural students at that time were not part of the school district in La Farge and had to pay tuition to attend.  Many of them boarded in the village while attending school.), beginning in 1912.  He can be seen in the front row of that iconic photograph of the 1912 LHS Football Team, staring with wide eyes from beneath his leather helmet.  Glenn also participated in other sports while attending school in La Farge.  He was an active and well-liked student.

In his Senior year at LHS, Glenn Jones participated in the local LHS oratory contest and was a member of the cast of the LHS Senior Class Play performed for the community at the Opera House on Main Street of La Farge.  A month later, at the end of May 1916, Glenn joined fifteen of his Senior classmates for the La Farge High School graduation ceremonies, also held at the Opera House.

A few weeks after that commencement ceremony in 1916, there was this item in the “Local News” section of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper, “Glen Jones, Floyd Rittenhouse and Layton Perkins were Yuba callers Saturday.”  It is supposed that some young ladies of Yuba may have been the impetus for the visit.

Later, Reverend Jones and his family left the La Farge area where he preached at other churches in Wisconsin.  Glenn probably went with his family when they moved, but he may have remained in La Farge.  When America entered the war in the Spring of 1918, Glenn Jones joined the military.  He trained at Camp Grant, a huge American military training facility located near Rockford, Illinois.  Glenn Jones was a member of the 47^th Infantry, Company E, which was formed in May 1917 and organized in June at Syracuse, New York.  The unit was fighting on the front lines of the Western Front in France by July 1918.  In the six months of his time in the service, Glenn Jones attained the rank of corporal.

In the October 10, 1918 issue of the Enterprise, mention of the La Farge lad was made in the “Local News” column, “A report has been circulated that Glenn Jones had been killed in France.  At this writing confirmation of this report has not been received.”  Several months went by, including the Armistice signing to end the war, before La Farge’s newspaper could get the confirmation about Glenn Jones.

“Mr and Mrs Geo. Burnard received a card Wednesday from Rev. D. G. Jones of Pardeeville, which stated that their son Glenn was killed in France sometime between the 3^rd and 13^th of August.  The report had reached them sometime ago that he was missing but nothing definite was learned until this time.  The sad news of Glenn’s death is a severe blow to his parents and relatives and they have the deepest sympathy of their many friends in this village.” – from the La Farge Enterprise, “Local News” section, January 2, 1919 issue.

The United States lost 50,280 men in World War I including La Farge’s Glenn Jones.  Glenn Jones was killed in action on August 7, 1918 while cleaning out a nest of machine gunners with hand grenades in the Argonne Forest region.  He was wounded with a shot to the leg and died before he could be evacuated.  The body of Glenn Jones was buried in a military cemetery in France alongside his fallen American comrades.

The body of Glenn Jones was later returned to the United States on August 4, 1921 and was buried with full military honors at the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.  The La Farge V.F.W. Post 9075 was named after Corporal David Glenn Jones to honor La Farge’s only World War I veteran killed in action. 

THE GREAT WAR

This year America is commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the United States entering The Great War.  That catastrophic conflict had been raging in Europe since the summer of 1914, starting shortly after the assassination of Austria - Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo.  The Central Powers in the conflict included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Turkish Empire.  The Allies were comprised of Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, several Balkan nations, Russia, and Great Britain.

            For three years, the United States tried to remain neutral and stay out of The Great War.  President Woodrow Wilson even ran for re-election in 1916 on a campaign theme of “He Kept Us Out of War!”  In that 1916 election, Wilson was returned to the White House by the narrowest of margins, winning over New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes by a tally of 277-254 in the Electoral College.

            However, within a month after his inauguration, President Wilson went before Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany.  Wilson said, “The world must be made safe for democracy”.  April 6, 1917 was the date when America joined in the conflict.  America soon undertook preparations to join the Allies in what we now know as World War I.  The country called for men to join the American military and that call soon reached the Kickapoo Valley and La Farge.

            In researching through copies of La Farge’s newspaper from that time, the La Farge Enterprise, I was startled by how many young men went into the various branches of military service.  Of course, Congress passed a Selective Service Act in May 1917. A month later, nearly three-quarter of a million names of men were selected in a draft to serve in the military.  Many men had already volunteered for service, including dozens from La Farge.  Women joined the Nurses Corps of the Army and Navy as well as taking administrative jobs with the government.  Many young ladies from La Farge left town to help with the war effort.

            By May 1918, the men of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) were fighting on the front lines in France.  The influx of American soldiers into the bloody trench warfare of the Western Front during that summer of 1918 saved the day for the Allies.  Young men from La Farge were there in France during the summer and fall of that year as the tide turned against Germany.

            The La Farge Enterprise published letters from local lads who were in military service in every weekly issue during that time.  Some of the letters were from men stationed at various military training bases in the United States.  But other letters sent back home by local lads were from the front lines and are astonishing in their stark descriptions of the horrors of war.

            George Steinmetz, a 1917 graduate of La Farge High School, wrote of his experiences in the war in a letter published in the Enterprise in early October 1918.  George wrote:

            Somewhere in France – July 28, 1918

            Dearest of Folks at home: - I don’t know just when I wrote you last, but think it was less than a week ago.  I have a hard time keeping track of time any more.  We are so busy trying to keep up with the Dutchmen that we have no time for much else.

            I am tired and sleepy, but otherwise I am feeling fine.

            There are four of us in a little dugout about six feet square and the roof high enough for me to bump my head when I sit up.  We usually fix a place like this to sleep in and to duck into when we are not firing, but are being fired at.  This happens occasionally.  We all despised digging until after our first hard battle, and after that we were all perfectly willing to dig in.  Not because it is more comfortable but a great deal safer.  Whenever we get a chance to fire though every one of us are out and working for one doesn’t notice being fired at when he can fire back.  If we keep them running like they are now the war will soon be over.

            Gee, how I should like to eat at home Christmas.

            George Steinmetz then goes on in his letter to boast how his battery unit is one of the best in the AEF as determined by their combat experiences.  He writes that both French and American “high authorities” had praised his unit’s fighting skills.  Steinmetz concludes his letter to his family by writing, “I will close today.  Do write often.  I know you do but I don’t get them regular.  With lots of love to all at home every one of you.  Your own boy, George”

            Another letter sent home and published in the same issue of the Enterprise was from Glenn Blakley, who had been wounded in fighting on the Western Front.  Blakley wrote two letters home, one to his parents and another to his brother, Delbert Blakley, letting them know about his battle wounds and reassuring them about his health.  Glenn Blakley wrote,

            France, August 7, 1918

Dear Folks at Home:  Am stopping on my way back to the base hospital for a day or so, so will write a few lines to let you know that I am o.k. and as you can tell by the writing haven’t lost all of my arms, legs and my head.

            I got it Monday morning in the left hand with a piece of shrapnel and a very small piece of it in my right knee, but that one will be well in a week at least.  My hand will get o.k. too as I have had my operation on it and still have all my fingers.  Guess there is a couple of little bones broken but as you know my broken bones always heal o.k.

            I will be sent on down to some base hospital within a day or two and can then tell you what hospital I am at and give you my new address so I can get mail again.  Guess it will be sent on to me anyway but of course there will be some delay.

            I will try to tell you somewhere near where I was if the censor does not cut it out.  I was on the front that was between Soissions and Chateau-Thierry but of course it was back of both of these towns at that time for, as you will remember we had captured both of those towns long before that date.

            Am going to close for today but will write when I get where I can give you my address.  Love to all and drop Kampfs and Aunt Francis a line and tell them.

 I am, your son, Glenn.

            At the end of Glenn Blakley’s letter to his parents, mention is also made of another letter written to his brother Delbert and dated August 12, 1918.  In that letter, Glenn wrote, “that the center was shot out of his left hand and that the two center fingers would probably be left stiff.  He says that the wound to his knee is slight but that it would be two or three months before his hand would be well”.   

            Both of the letters from George Steinmetz and Glenn Blakley written from the Western Front were published on the front page of the La Farge Enterprise.  Further back in an October issue of the La Farge weekly was an ominous item located in the “Local News” column.  It read: “A report has been circulated that Glenn Jones had been killed in France.  At this writing confirmation of this report has not been received.”

DON'T BURN YOUR BRIDGES BEHIND YOU!

In late October 1975, the La Farge Fire Department notified the Corps of Engineers that there could be no fire protection coverage on the federal dam lands without a written agreement.  The fire department was leery about driving the fire trucks across the old bridges on Highway 131 north of town, since the trucks would exceed the 10-ton weight limits.  Eventually the Corps and the fire department came to a temporary agreement over fire protection coverage and the Wisconsin DOT gave approval to the La Farge fire trucks crossing the bridges as long as a 5-mph speed limit was followed.

Many of the problems with traffic using the old bridges on Highway 131 could have been avoided if the new section of the highway, running from La Farge to Rockton had been opened in mid-October as planned.  The paving of the new section of highway was completed by then and ready for traffic, but disagreements between the Corps of Engineers and the Wisconsin DOT over the ownership of the new section stopped the transferal.  The DOT felt that the new section of highway did not meet state standards nor was adequately or properly completed.  Finally, Jim Ruyak announced from his Corps offices in St. Paul that the new highway would not be transferred to the state as planned nor would the new section be opened to traffic in 1975. 

The new highway project was also stopped when several local governments balked at plans for what to do with the old highway.  Once again, the local school district joined in the controversy.  It was suggested by some that the school buses could avoid crossing the bridges on old Highway 131 by instead using the new route.  But the La Farge School District resisted running their buses on the new road until the DOT had officially taken over that section of the highway.

 The school also wondered about the flood-prone section of the old highway south of Rockton and the condition of the bridges on that section south to Weister Creek.  That section of the old highway was to become part of County Trunk P, but Vernon County had no money for road or bridge improvements on that section of the old state highway.  Several Vernon County board members opposed the county assuming ownership of that section of Highway 131 due to the projected high cost of maintenance and repairs.  

The Town of Stark was supposed to assume ownership of old Highway 131 from the Corps’ dam site south to the La Farge village limits.  But Town of Stark officials rejected assuming ownership of the road due to the poor condition of that portion of the state highway.  That portion of old Highway 131 had damage caused by heavy machinery traffic on the road during the dam construction.

 Finally, the Village of La Farge was to assume ownership of the old highway from the northern village limits (next to the Star Cemetery) south to where the old road joined new Highway 131 on Mill Street near the ballpark.  But that section of the old highway contained the crumbling bridge at Seelyburg that needed massive repairs or replacement entirely.  Since the village had no money for either bridge option, La Farge also rejected taking over that portion of old Highway 131.

So as the winter season approached, the new section of Highway 131 remained closed to traffic (although it was unofficially open to those who chose to use it and many did) and what to do with several sections of the old highway remained in tumult.

With all of the controversy over the bridges around La Farge, there was one positive development when a new bridge was built across the Kickapoo River at the Lawton (Rehbein) farm south of La Farge.  The Highway 131 Bridge was opened for traffic at the end of November, but of course, not before some controversy.

The new bridge was actually the first part of a larger project to renovate and straighten Highway 131 between Tunnelville and La Farge.  The plan called for cutting through the hill known as Elk Point on the Rehbein farm, which would eliminate the old railroad tunnel still at that place.  Besides the historic tunnel, there was also an ancient Native American burial ground located on the top of the hill above the tunnel.  The DOT plan called for the elimination of the tunnel and the removal of the Native American mounds beginning in the summer of 1976.  The project was to be completed by the fall of 1977.  (More on the local efforts to save the old railroad tunnel and burial mounds in a later installment)

On Monday, December 8^th, 1975, as early morning drivers headed north from La Farge on Highway 131, they came upon a burning bridge a mile and a half north of Rockton.  One car stayed at the bridge (Bridge #9) to ward off any traffic trying to cross, while another driver went back to Rockton to notify authorities.

When the La Farge Fire Department arrived at 6:30 am, the south end of the bridge was fully engulfed with flames.  The creosote coated wooden pilings under the bridge on that end were already burned off, indicating that the fire had been burning for some time.  Some of the wooden under-planking on the deck was also burned through and the entire southern end of the bridge had collapsed, dropping a foot below the roadway approach.  The fire department was at the scene for two hours pouring water on the burning timbers.  Later that afternoon, the La Farge firemen were called back to the bridge fire scene as several flare-ups of the creosoted timbers were extinguished.

The Vernon County Sheriff’s Department and county highway crews were at the burning bridge scene immediately.  An alternate route needed to be established for traffic.  The lengthy detour routed traffic to County Roads P and F and Highway 33 before returning to Highway 131. 

Vernon County Highway Commissioner Ernie Urban inspected the bridge after the flames were extinguished and declared the burned out bridge unsafe for any traffic.  Barricades were set at each end of the bridge as Urban said it was even unsafe for people to walk across the bridge.  The bridge was also being treated as a crime scene. 

Vernon County Sheriff Geoff Banta said that the burning of the bridge was a deliberate act of vandalism.  Some noted that the bridge had been burned only four days after the U.S. Senate had rejected all funding for the La Farge dam project.  Earlier in the fall, the Wisconsin DOT had inspected the bridge and a 15-ton weight limit had been placed on it.

The week before the bridge burning, another meeting had been held in Madison between the DOT and Corps’ officials about the possibility of opening the new section of Highway 131 between Rockton and La Farge.  Earlier, possibly spurred on by the school bus protest, the DOT had asked that the old section of Highway 131 between Rockton and La Farge be closed due to the old and crumbling bridges along that section of the state highway.  Corps’ officials had seemed ready to open the new section of highway in mid-October, but that plan was thwarted when state, county, village and town officials balked at assuming control of the old highway and its poor bridges.  The early December meeting in Madison had been called to see if those problems could be resolved and the new highway opened.  But in the end, the Corps again said that the new section of highway would not be opened to traffic.

The week before Christmas, Senator William Proxmire made a surprise visit to La Farge.  As he talked to people in an impromptu meeting on the sidewalk in front of the La Farge bank, tempers flared and several people cursed the Senator.  Local anti-dam leader Gale Huston defended Proxmire, but also drew curses and jeers from most of the gathered crowd.  Before quickly leaving, Proxmire, who some in La Farge called “Senator Scrooge” as befit the holiday season, told people to buy flood insurance or move out of the flood plain.

The following week, the Vernon County Highway Department announced that the burned bridge north of Rockton would be rebuilt.  In La Farge, members of the fire department and ambulance squad held a practice on the use of the new Jaws-Of-Life extrication device.  Using some donated junk vehicles the emergency personnel learned how to open up vehicles with the device to get to injured people trapped inside.

As 1975 ended, there did not seem to be much good news in the village of La Farge.  At the last village board meeting of the year, it was noted that the village Christmas tree located at the old firehouse between the bank and post office did not have enough lights to be sufficiently festive.  The board also heard that the brand new Bean Park skating rink leaked.  Bah, Humbug!

*                                  *                                  *                                  *

Save the date!  As part of the Driftless Dialogue lecture series at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, I will be talking about this crazy time of the La Farge dam project history on Wednesday, June 21.  “More On That Dam History!” will begin at 7 pm with socializing and refreshments offered one-half hour prior to the program.

BRIDGES & BUSES - 1975

Lately I have been working on volume II of my La Farge history.  I have been reviewing my research of the events that happened during the mid-1970s in this little Kickapoo River town.  It was a crazy time, as the controversy over the La Farge dam project seemed to control everything happening in the village.  One of those strange occurrences in the fall of 1975 put La Farge back in the media bulls-eye once again.  The local protest played out over a couple of weeks and was initiated by the appearance of Senator William Proxmire in the village.

Senator Proxmire spoke to a standing room only crowd at the new La Farge firehouse that Saturday morning, September 5, 1975.  Proxmire announced that he was withdrawing his support of the dam project after being a staunch proponent of the project for years.  The announcement stunned nearly everyone in attendance (including my wife, Carolyn and me) and the discussion after the senator left, was what do we do now?  The pro-dam contingent, a vast majority in the village, wondered what was the next step to take?

That next step occurred on the following Monday evening at a special school board meeting held in the La Farge gym.  One hundred and thirty people were in attendance at the meeting and a petition was read bearing 140 names asking that the school board take appropriate action if the board members felt that area bridges were unsafe for travel by school buses.  A discussion at the meeting brought up that most area bridges recently had weight limits posted on them, some with limits as low as ten tons.  All of the bridges on Highway 131 north of La Farge located in the dam project land had 10-ton limits except for one.  School board president Roger Gabrielson estimated that a full school bus would weigh close to or exceed the 10-ton weight limit.  Gabrielson contended that nine state highway bridges located in the La Farge School District were unsafe for the district’s seven buses.

In a 3-2 vote, the school board decided to close La Farge Schools beginning on the following Thursday due to the weight restricted bridges.  Board members Mac Marshall Jr., David Clift and Marvin Munson voted for the measure, while Gabrielson and Richard Allen voted against it.  Both Gabrielson and Allen voted against the measure because they wanted the school to close the very next day, on Tuesday.

Discussion at the special school board meeting also focused on the fact that there was no money budgeted for repairs or replacements for any of the bridges on Highway 131 north of La Farge.  Those bridges were supposed to be removed when the lake from the dam project was created, but with Senator Proxmire’s withdrawal of support for completion of the dam project, it seemed the bridges would have to remain in use.  Since Governor Patrick Lucey earlier had said that no state funds would be used on the bridge and highway relocations for the La Farge dam project, it could be years before the bridges would be upgraded or replaced.

School board president Gabrielson told the board and attendees that the school would be in contact with the state DOT the next morning about the bridge concerns and the school closing.

Further local protest was in place the next morning as the La Farge school buses crossed the crumbling Highway 82 bridge over the Kickapoo River in La Farge.  On that Tuesday, a dozen protestors, many carrying signs denouncing the conditions of the bridge as well as state and federal politicians, paced warily along the sides of the bridge.  The number of protestors grew during the week and nearly three dozen people picketed on the bridge west of Nuzum’s by week’s end.  A reporter for the LaCrosse Tribune covering the demonstrations took a photograph of Orval Howard standing in one of the holes in the side of the road on the state highway bridge.  In the photo that appeared in the next days’ newspaper, Howard sank over three feet into the hole before his feet found some hanging angle iron beneath the road.  Soon after, the county highway crews placed orange construction barrels over the holes and stretched snow fence along each side of the bridge to keep demonstrators and others away from the holes.

By the end of the week, others who were walking across the bridge over the Kickapoo River in La Farge included school children riding on the buses to and from school.

After the leaders of the La Farge Schools contacted the state DOT about the bridges and scheduled school closing, intense negotiations resulted in a compromise to avoid closing La Farge’s schools.  Representatives from the DOT met with school officials on the afternoon following the special school board meeting.  An inspection was done of the bridge at Nuzum’s (where picketing had begun that morning) and options were discussed.  The next day, the DOT sent a letter to the school with assurances that all the state bridges were safe for school buses to cross.  School bus routes were then altered to avoid crossing the bridges north of La Farge as much as possible, although the new routes took more buses across the Highway 82 Bridge in La Farge.  It was decided by the school leaders that the buses would stop at the bridge approaches and the children would be unloaded.  Then the empty bus with red warning lights flashing would lead the walking students across the bridge.  Once across, the students would return to the bus and the route would continue.  This drastic move of having students walk across the bridges in and around La Farge was continued for several school days reaching into the next week.

During that time, more state bridge inspectors came to La Farge and inspected all nine bridges cited by the school in their report to the Wisconsin DOT.  With new weight restrictions and speed limits placed on the bridges, the La Farge school buses once again began hauling students across the spans instead of having them walk.  The press coverage of the La Farge bridge protest and the students walking across the bridges was massive.  Besides the La Farge area newspapers and radio as well as the LaCrosse newspaper, radio and TV stations, the bridges story merited coverage in the Madison and Milwaukee newspapers, radio and TV stations.  Several Chicago newspapers and one of the Windy City’s TV stations also covered the story of the La Farge bridges and walking students.

La Farge Epitaph editor Lonnie Muller concluded his “WHAT NOW ???” editorial in the September 10^th issue by writing, “I support the board 100% even though I figured a Tuesday closing was even better.  The day has come when La Farge can quit taking a back seat to everything in the state.  It’s damn time our side of the story got out to Lucey and his conniving bunch of pigheads in Madison.  We are sick and tired of being the pawns in the chess game of life.  We just checkmated you Lucey and from now on you are playing a losing game with the people of the Kickapoo Valley, if not the entire state.  You figured that you could put us down forever, but it just didn’t work out that way did it?  I think that now, more than ever, the La Farge people are starting to really work together.  I was damn disgusted Saturday when Proxmire made his speech pulling his support from the project, but by Tuesday evening when I write this, I can say that I’m damn proud of these people in this community who are going to fight this together to the finish.  I think a new chapter just started for La Farge, and probably a pretty good one at that.”

In the following week’s Epitaph (9-17-1975), reporter Pete Beckstrand wrote an interesting article on the DOT bridge inspections.  The recent state inspections had found that all of the bridges in the Kickapoo Valley were structurally safe.  However, much of the article provided contrary evidence of the sorry state of most of the bridges around La Farge.  Beckstrand noted that many of the state highway bridges in the La Farge area were “used” bridges – having been originally built at other sites.  He wrote that Bridge 18 (the Bacon Bridge just north of Seelyburg and the dam project site) was originally a span over the Wisconsin River at Spring Green.  After the bad Kickapoo River flood of 1951 damaged the Bacon Bridge, the state highway department hauled an old Spring Green span out of storage and put it across the Kickapoo River as a replacement.  Beckstrand also detailed that there were a total of 92 bridges in Wisconsin that had weight restrictions and 15 of them were located in the northern Kickapoo Valley.  In the article, he quoted Lee Schneider, chief engineer of the DOT’s LaCrosse office, as saying in a phone interview that the La Farge area bridges were in need of “massive maintenance and repair”, and there was no state money budgeted to pay for it.

Within a week after the state bridge inspections, Bridges 16, 17, and 18 on Highway 131 north of La Farge were posted with speed limits and 10-ton weight limits.  The Highway 82 Bridge across Otter Creek west of La Farge was made one-way for traffic.  The Highway 82 Bridge over the Kickapoo River at Nuzum’s was already one-way due to the placement of barrels and snow fence along both sides.

Beckstrand also reported in the article that a La Farge school bus loaded with mostly small children was weighed on the scale at Nuzum’s.  The bus weighed 16,900 pounds and the Episcope reporter wondered if a bus loaded with high school age students might exceed the 10-ton limit placed on most area bridges.