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La Crosse Public |
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Preface: This is not meant to be a definitive history, but will hopefully give the reader an overall impression of the historical pattern of ethnicity in La Crosse County. Some of the links in this history will lead to specific documents at the the Wisconsin Historical Society or the Library of Congress web sites.
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When the white settlers first arrived, what did the county look like? The landscape was described as a prairie with surrounding bluffs and coulees, or in geographical terms -- uplands and valleys. La Crosse County is located in the driftless area and was not covered by glaciers. The term "coulee" is a French word and is described as a deep ravine or steep-walled valley. La Crosse County is also known as the Coulee Region. The Mississippi River valley lies to the west. A line of bluffs extends across the area from north to south. East of this main line of bluffs, the land consists of a series of ridges varying in elevation above the streams which fill the valleys. The tops of the ridges are gently rolling due to wind action.
 Click on the image above to visit the 1886 Gazetteer. |
The La Crosse River dissects the northern from the southern part of the county, and this river receives the water from the Burns, Dutch, Fish and Bostwick creeks as well as a number of smaller streams. The Black River forms part of the very northwestern boundary of the county and receives water from Fleming Creek, while Mormon Creek drains the southern part of the county into the Mississippi River. Eventually all the drainage goes to the Mississippi River.
For more information on locations of towns and villages in the county, click on the map image on the left to visit the Gazetteer of 1886 section which has county map images from 1878 and 1906 to help orient you, as well as descriptions of the places as they existed in La Crosse County in 1886.
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Following a particularly brutal winter, Chief Black Hawk led the return of about one thousand Sauk and Fox people to northern Illinois after forced federal relocation to Iowa in April 1832. Black Hawk hoped to forge a military alliance with the Winnebago and other tribes against the United States. However, his return led to unfortunate events and the beginning of the Black Hawk War against the Sauk and Fox native peoples in 1832. The war ended in defeat for Chief Black Hawk, clearing the way for white settlement. This event changed the landscape that would become Wisconsin forever.
 Click on the image above to read first hand accounts of the Black Hawk War from the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
Shortly after this, in 1834, land offices were established at Prairie du Chien and Green Bay, and Wisconsin became a territory two years later. In 1841, the pre-emption law was approved which made government lands available at $1.25 per acre. When land was preempted, the prospective purchaser had five years to pay it off. During this time, no one else could lay claim to the property. If the land was not owned free and clear by the fifth year, another person could purchase it. This law had a profound affect on settlement of La Crosse County.
The origins of permanent white settlement in La Crosse began with the arrival of fur trader Nathan Myrick in 1841. Myrick, originally from Westport, New York, and only eighteen years of age, set up a fur trading post with Eben Weld across the Mississippi River on what was then called Barron's Island. The following year, Myrick and his new partner Harmon J. B. Miller moved their post to the shores of Prairie La Crosse. Trade between Myrick, Miller and the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) peoples was heavy in those first years, trading muskrats, raccoon, mink and other furs and silver coins for goods Myrick & Weld had purchased on credit at Prairie du Chien, some 80 miles south of La Crosse. Myrick also cut wood during the winter months to sell as fuel for the steamboats traversing the waters of the Mississippi River.
 Grandad Bluff was quarried until a citizen group, led by Mrs. Hixon, purchased the bluff for the residents of the city of La Crosse in 1909. Image from La Crosse Illustrated (n.p. : Art Publishing Co., 1887). |
In October 1844, a community of 20 families of the Mormon faith from Nauvoo, Illinois, landed at La Crosse. The Mormon peoples had been in the Black River pineries as early as 1839, harvesting lumber for their Temple at Nauvoo. The La Crosse contingent built several cabins, twenty-five or thirty, in the area now called Mormon Coulee in the Town of Shelby, approximately five miles south of Myrick's trading post. Myrick & Miller employed several of the men to cut cordwood and make shingles over the winter. Myrick paid them for their services in food and other provisions for the fledgling community. In the spring of 1845, the settlement left the La Crosse area en masse, burned their houses, and eventually moved to Texas.
Despite their brief time in what was to become La Crosse County, the Mormons left their name on two important pieces of real estate: Mormon Coulee and Mormon Creek. The Mormon Coulee ("coolie") area follows the Mormon Creek from Running Slough in the Town of Shelby on the west through the Town of Greenfield and to the western part of the Town of Washington to the east on St. Joseph Ridge. It is bounded on the north by St. Joseph Ridge and on the south by Brinkman Ridge (initially called Brecken Ridge). Brinkman Ridge spills over into Vernon County.
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The first white migrants to Wisconsin territory were Yankees such as Myrick who came from the New England states to make their way in the new frontier. Many of these families and industrious young men did not stay long and continued their journey farther west. Robert Wingate, in his thesis titled Settlement Patterns of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 1850-1875, notes that rural settlement did not progress rapidly until 1851. By 1850, only 6.6% of the county was occupied by permanent settlers.
In his study, Wingate analyzed and quantified purchasers of land in the county and census data, arranging settlers into six broad ethnic groups: the British-Irish, who tended to choose land on sand terraces, alluvium and bottom lands along the Mississippi River; the Germans, who settled largely on the limestone ridges; the Norwegians, who preferred sandstone soils; the Dutch, who chose sand terrace and bottom lands near the river; the French, who preferred the sand terrace and bottom land north of La Crosse; and lastly the Bohemians, who tended to choose limestone soils in the southeastern corner of the county.
 Click on the image above to read the Emigrant's Handbook from the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
How and why did immigrants choose Wisconsin as a place to settle? In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state in the union and was considered the frontier for pioneering settlers from Europe. In 1848 a revolution took place in the German states and many people fled to the United States to seek refuge and start a new life. This group is often referred to as the "48ers," and they were the beginning of a flood of immigrants from the German provinces to Wisconsin. In La Crosse County, Wingate found that 1850 was the first year that Germans and Norwegians purchased land.
In 1851 the Emigrant's Handbook & Guide to Wisconsin was written by Milwaukee resident Samuel Freeman and distributed to potential emigrants in Europe. Other guidebooks were also published, and adventuresome pioneers wrote of their experiences in this new world. Many times the young adult men would come first, earning money to buy or preempt a farm. When enough money was saved up, he would send it back to Europe so other family members could join him. After the first decade of immigration, as roads and other avenues of transportation in the county improved, more families traversed the Atlantic Ocean together. By this time, more families had ties with other friends or family that were already settled here, which helped make the transition from the old world to the new much easier. After 1862, homesteading was another way to become a land owner.
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Click on the image above to visit the 1886 Gazetteer. |
For more information on locations of towns and villages in the county, click on the map image to the right to visit the Gazetteer of 1886 which has county map images from 1878 and 1906 to help orient you, as well as descriptions of the places as they existed in 1886.
 Click on the image above to see township and range numbers for La Crosse County. |
Wisconsin broke off from Michigan and became its own territory in 1836, and in 1848 Wisconsin became the 30th state in the union. At first the area that became La Crosse County was a part of Crawford County. Crawford also included what are now Crawford, Vernon, Monroe, and parts of Buffalo, Clark, Jackson, Taylor and Trempealeau counties as well. At this time three towns were established: La Crosse, Albion and Pine Valley. The Town of La Crosse included not only the present La Crosse County but all of Trempealeau and Jackson counties as well.
In 1851, La Crosse became a county, but it also included what was to become Jackson, Monroe and Trempealeau counties. It wasn't until 1857 when the present La Crosse County boundaries were established by the state legislature. In 1855 the site of what became the city of La Crosse was established by the legislature as the permanent county seat.
For more information on sections, township and range numbers, see the History of Towns by clicking on the green map image above and to the right.
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The first Germans in La Crosse County made land purchases in the area of Mormon Coulee in the Town of Shelby, in the area abandoned by the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, several years previous. Many of these pioneers would later join the German Methodist church.
The Norwegians first purchased land in the La Crosse River valley which divides the entire county from east to west, from Sparta in Monroe County all the way through the city of La Crosse to meet up with the Black River. The river also served as a major venue of transportation.
 Click on the image above to read an immigrant letter from Dane Co. from the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
For an example of a Norwegian immigrant letter sent to the homeland, click on the farming image to the left to read about Norwegians who settled in the Koshkonong Area. The letter was written by the Bondal family in Dane County to their relatives back in Norway. While this particular letter does not represent La Crosse, it does give a flavor of the Norwegian experience in Wisconsin.
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To gain a better understanding of the Norwegian immigrant experience, read an oral history transcription called Pioneer Days of A. H. Bratberg by clicking on the "American Memory" image to the right. Bratberg was an immigrant from Ringsager, Norway, and whose family settled in the Long Coulee area near Holmen.
In 1851, a large influx of British-Irish came to La Crosse County and purchased 1068 forty-acre parcels. The chosen areas of purchase were Lewis Valley in the Town of Farmington that follows Fleming Creek. Two communities, Stevenstown and Mindoro, developed to serve the growing area. The first mill in the county was built on Fleming Creek. A major Welsh settlement was also established in an area that became the Town of Bangor. The village of Bangor was later formed in 1854 and was named for the settlers' hometown in Wales. The village of West Salem in the Town of Hamilton was also founded at this time by migrants from New England.
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By 1853 the Germans and Norwegians really began to impact the landscape in La Crosse County, but 1855 marked the largest land purchases by these two ethnic groups. During 1855, the Germans bought 255 forty acre parcels. The Germans tended to settle on limestone ridges in the southern part of the county, namely on St. Joseph Ridge, and they were mainly Catholic Germans from the southern German states. The ridge is divided into three parts: St. Joseph (1866), Middle Ridge (St. Peter; 1869), and St. Mary. St. Mary Ridge is actually in Monroe County. While Catholic services were held in this area as early as 1855 by Father William Trappert, parishes were later formally established on each part, St. Joseph in 1866 and Middle Ridge (St. Peter) in 1869. Wingate identified the families in the St. Joseph parish consisting of immigrants from Luxemburg, Rhine-Prussia, Baden, Bavaria, Bohemia and Wuerttemberg.
A group of Lutheran Germans who did not follow this pattern chose instead to settle on sandy soils in the northeastern part of the county. This sect was originally from the village of Wehrshausen, Sachen (Saxony) on the Werra River. In 1855, Burr Oak Lutheran Church was founded by these people, and Mindoro was used as the service center in the Town of Farmington.
| La Crosse County Nativity by Town Top Six Places, 1870-1905 |
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| Abstracted from the Statistics of the Population of the United States...[and the various subsequent titles] (Washington : Government Printing Office), 1872, p. 377; 1883 p. 535; 1895, p. 667-8; 1901 (part 1), p. 794-5. 1905 statistics from Tabular Statements of the Census Enumeration ... (Madison : Wisconsin, Secretary of State), 1906, p. 148-151. |
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| Year | United States | Foreign Nativity | |||||
| Wisconsin | Other States | Germany | Norway | Bohemia | England & Wales | Canada | |
| 1870 | 6779 | 4916 | 2831 | 2646 | 489 | 570 | 580 |
| 1880 | 12030 | 5090 | 3013 | 3367 | 783 | 546 | 605 |
| 1890 | 25848 | 5104 | 4371 | 506 | 474 | 577 | |
| 1900 | 32095 | 4397 | 3450 | 539 | 335 | 311 | |
| 1905 | 27056 | 6278 | 3977 | 2908 | 457 | 288 | 384 |
| Please note: (1)The 1870 and 1880 censuses divided the British areas up into separate categories and Canada was not mentioned separately. The categories were: British America, England and Wales, and Great Britain (not stated). However, Ireland and Scotland were separate categories. For the Canadian figures, the British America figure was used. (2)In the 1870 and 1880 censuses, the figures for Norway represent those born in Norway and Sweden. | |||||||
The Norwegians tended to prefer the northern part of the county, and chose farmland nestled in the coulees. The village of Holmen became a focal point for this area. In 1855 Norwegians acquired 117 forty acre parcels. By 1856, the Norwegian population had grown enough to establish four Lutheran churches: Lewis Valley (Town of Farmington), Halfway Creek (Town of Onalaska), Bostwick Valley (Town of Barre), and the hamlet of West Salem. Rev. H. A. Stub from Coon Prairie in Vernon County was the organizer. Many of the La Crosse County Norwegians were related to those in Vernon County and originated from the same areas in southeastern Norway.
Although small in numbers, the Dutch founded a settlement in the northwestern part of the county in 1853, approximately ten miles north of the community of La Crosse. They travelled to La Crosse via the port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River. The community established New Amsterdam as the center of their settlement. Their township was appropriately named Holland. The two following years, 1854 and 1855, also saw more land purchases by peoples of Dutch origin.
| La Crosse County Nativity by Town, 1905 Top Six Birth Places |
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| Abstracted from the Tabular Statements of the Census Enumeration... (Madison : Wisconsin Secretary of State), 1906, p. 148-151 |
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| Name of Town | United States | Foreign Nativity | ||||
| Wisconsin | Other States |
Germany | Norway | Bohemia | Canada | |
| Bangor | 503 | 39 | 68 | 34 | 6 | 3 |
| Bangor, village | 453 | 90 | 40 | 12 | 5 | 8 |
| Barre | 396 | 12 | 120 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Burns | 769 | 54 | 98 | 108 | 3 | 11 |
| Campbell | 688 | 72 | 92 | 26 | 2 | 25 |
| Farmington | 1146 | 66 | 107 | 246 | 1 | 7 |
| Greenfield | 553 | 5 | 69 | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| Hamilton | 796 | 92 | 119 | 218 | 0 | 5 |
| Holland | 761 | 41 | 18 | 174 | 0 | 2 |
| La Crosse, city | 17349 | 5321 | 2917 | 1646 | 327 | 293 |
| Onalaska | 690 | 74 | 28 | 133 | 0 | 4 |
| Onalaska, city | 729 | 150 | 56 | 123 | 0 | 15 |
| Shelby | 806 | 81 | 119 | 20 | 60 | 10 |
| Washington | 585 | 10 | 64 | 67 | 50 | 0 |
| West Salem, village | 532 | 171 | 62 | 70 | 3 | 1 |
| TOTALS | 27056 | 6278 | 3977 | 2908 | 457 | 384 |
| To see the complete figures for the ethnic groups, see 1905 La Crosse County Nativity. | ||||||
Although some Swiss settled in La Crosse County as early as 1849, the nucleus came in a body from Brienz, Canton Bern in 1856 and settled in the Mormon Coulee area in the Town of Shelby. According to an article "The Swiss Settlers of Mormon Coulee" by George Zielke in La Crosse County Historical Sketches, series 1, (Liesenfeld Press : La Crosse, WI, 1931), pp. 21-23, among this group were the Peter Kienholz Sr., John Schild Sr., John Bernet, John Flick, Melchoir Eggler and Ulrich Thomann families. All totalled there were 52 persons in this group.
The group left Switzerland March 3, 1856. They sailed from Havre to New York and the passage took 42 days. The party then went by rail to Buffalo, New York, and travelled by boat through Lake Erie to Cleveland, Ohio. Another railroad to Cairo, Illinois, was then boarded, and they proceeded up the river by steamboat to Dubuque, Iowa. Others of the Swiss settlement in Mormon Coulee came by sailboat via New Orleans and steamboat up the Mississippi River. Shortly after this group of Swiss immigrated to Mormon Coulee, a church was begun in 1857 organized by Pastor Wilhelm Hass. This group of Swiss Reformed is now known as Trinity United Church of Christ. This was a sister church to St. John's (German) Reformed Church in the city of La Crosse.
Another small group in terms of numbers in rural La Crosse County were the French who arrived by way of Canada. Many settled in an area that became known as French Island, just west of North La Crosse. The main source of income for these people was market gardening (truck farming). Not only was there a great demand for garden vegetables by the village of La Crosse, but as well by the large lumber camps in the Black River pineries.
 North Third Street on the northside of La Crosse was later called Mill St. and then Copeland Ave. Image from La Crosse Illustrated (n.p. : Art Publishing Co., 1887). |
The area in southeastern La Crosse County in the Town of Washington called Bohemian Ridge and Bohemian Valley were chosen by many Bohemians as their choice of settlement. The first settlers preempted land in 1854 and 1855. These people in general were Catholics and attended St. Peter's Catholic Church at Middle Ridge. Other Bohemians later purchased government lands in this area in the late 1850's and early 1860's.
Homesteading was not as popular as it was in states west of Wisconsin. By 1862 when the Homestead Act was approved, 85% of the county's land had already been preempted. Wingate's study found that Norwegians were the major homesteaders, as nearly one fourth of the land settled by Norwegians was homesteaded. The Germans were second but only 6.9% of German settled lands were homesteaded. Bohemians were third with 10% of Bohemian lands homesteaded.
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 Hoard's Dairyman magazine, led by Wisconsin diary farming pioneer William Hoard, promoted good breeding for dairy farming. The five breeds here are Brown Swiss, Jersey, Holstein, Ayrshire and Guernsey. Image from a postcard (Fort Atkinson, WI : Hoard & Sons Co., 1961). |
Prairie fires were a source of concern to the pioneers. Fire was a natural phenomena on the prairie and helped to regenerate native plant species. When the farming families arrived, they began to control the fires to protect their crops, livestock and other property. This dramatically changed the face of Wisconsin. Where prairies and grasslands once existed, row crops or oak savannah took their place.
Dr. J. E. Engstad, in an autobiographical article titled "Reminiscences of My Childhood" in La Crosse County Historical Sketches published by the La Crosse County Historical Society in 1935, recalled:
I can remember a short time after we moved into our new house, which was in 1866, that my sleep was disturbed by the grouse and prairie chickens courting on the knoll right above our house [in Sweden Coulee, near the Halfway Creek community in the Town of Onalaska].... Now, I believe there is neither a grouse nor a prairie chicken in La Crosse County. I can distinctly remember the report of guns, which to me sounded like cannons that never ceased from spring to fall. At least a half dozen deer were killed on our farm. The brooks were so full of fish that Father brought home a small basin full of trout, having taken them with his bare hands....
At first, wheat was major crop because it generated cash and there was a high demand for wheat. But wheat was hard on the soil and would eventually deplete the ground of valuable nutrients. According to the census returns of 1860, the top crops produced in La Crosse County were oats, wheat, Indian corn, and Irish potatoes. There were 1056 horses, 2138 milk cows, 442 sheep, 1113 oxen, and 1928 other cattle counted. Butter and cheese were also produced, although dairy farming didn't really catch on in the state until 1872 when the Wisconsin's Dairyman Association was established.
| Abstracted Agricultural Production in La Crosse County, 1860-1900, Part A | |||||||
| Abstracted from various reports of statistics from the federal agricultural census | |||||||
| Year | Product |
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| Bushels | Tons | Pounds | |||||
| Oats | Wheat | Corn | Potatoes | Barley | Hay | Tobacco | |
| 1860 | 195247 | 189496 | 171123 | 102899 | 5338 | 15316 | 0 |
| 1870 | 286126 | 581485 | 192503 | 66526 | 2922 | 15297 | 0 |
| 1880 | 431376 | 493240 | 379578 | 115696 | 46769 | 25104 | 800 |
| 1890 | 924233 | 195513 | 654129 | 243181 | 77818 | 43416 | 5300 |
| 1900 | 1070480 | 163180 | 769310 | 200076 | 158520 | 49126 | 33850 |
| Abstracted Agricultural Production in La Crosse County, 1860-1900, Part B | |||||||||
| Year | Product | Livestock | |||||||
| Pounds | Gallons | Number | |||||||
| Butter | Cheese | Milk | Milk Cows | Horses | Mules | Oxen | Swine | Chicken | |
| 1860 | 108401 | 17575 | not available |
2138 | 1056 | 18 | 1113 | 4642 | not available |
| 1870 | 248638 | 22165 | 3560 | 4438 | 3486 | 92 | 727 | 4408 | not available |
| 1880 | 388151 | 46979 | 43230 | 6329 | 5170 | 97 | 146 | 11615 | 43386 |
| 1890 | 586685 | 23794 | 4274696 | 11107 | 6167 | 53 | 79 | 17265 | 70840 |
| 1900 | 868109 | 4116 | 7118282 | 13912 | 7054 | 46 | not available |
27932 | 101965 |
| Please note: (1)The figures for butter and cheese represent quantities produced on farms and do not include creameries or commercial cheese manufacturers. (2)1870 & 1880 milk figures represent the amount of milk sold not produced by farms. (3)The 1900 census also noted 692,183 gallons of milk sold and an additional 455,700 gallons of cream sold by farms. (4)The 1890 and later censuses represent animals counted on farms and do not include any livestock kept in the cities or villages. (5)The 1900 census broke out the neat cattle into much more specific categories than previous censuses. The figure taken for milk cows here was the category "dairy cows 2 years and over." | |||||||||
Barbara Kooiman, principal investigator of Southern La Crosse County, Wisconsin : Historical/Architectural Survey, Circa 1845 to 1950, has noted that already by 1870 hay, wheat and oats were important crops, but by 1890 wheat was already becoming unpopular. With the decline in wheat production, that of hay and oats continued to climb. By the early 20th century, corn was increasingly dominant, as newer hybrid varieties could withstand the shorter growing seasons. Hay and corn are both crops used to feed livestock.
Diary cattle were not popular in the state until 1872 when the Wisconsin's Dairyman Association was established. William Hoard, described as a Wisconsin pioneer dairy farmer, published Hoard's Dairyman and promoted dairy farming in Wisconsin. As milking breeds became more popular in the 1880's, improvements were made, such as inoculation and butterfat tests. Breeding associations became popular as well. By World War I, the two most popular breeds in Wisconsin were the Holstein and the Guernsey.
 Click the button above to view the full table from Memoirs of La Crosse. |
In 1906, outside of the city of La Crosse, the chief occupations were agriculture and dairying. Crops grown in the county included oats, corn, barley, wheat, potatoes, rye and tobacco. Butter production was also big in the county, whereas cheese production was not. The following list was summarized from Memoirs of La Crosse County by Benjamin Bryant. The crops listed are in order of highest production for that town in 1906 and were based on county assessment records:
| Bangor | oats, corn, barley | |
| Barre | oats, corn, barley | |
| Burns | oats, corn, barley | |
| Campbell | corn, oats, barley | |
| Farmington | lead the county in oats, barley, wheat and rye; corn also popular | |
| Greenfield | lead the county in butter production; oats, corn, tobacco; barley also popular | |
| Hamilton | lead the county in corn, barley, and cultivated grasses; oats also popular | |
| Holland | corn, oats, rye | |
| Onalaska | oats, corn, barley | |
| Shelby | lead the county in production of potatoes, root crops, apples and cheese; oats, corn, and barley also popular | |
| Washington | lead the county in tobacco; oats, barley, corn also popular |
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 Click on the image above to visit Life in a Lumber Camp from the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
While lumber was being forested from the Black River pineries near Black River Falls as early as 1839, the height of the lumber boom in northern Wisconsin occurred in 1899. By this time in La Crosse, it was the beginning of the end of the lumbering trade. Many sawmills had been constructed along the shoreline in a stretch from Onalaska north of La Crosse south to Isle la Plume on La Crosse's southside. However, most were located on the north side of the city near the confluence of the Black and Mississippi rivers. Many New Englanders became rich from the seemingly endless supply of pine, but when the Wisconsin supply did run out near the end of the nineteenth century, these lumber barons moved further west or south to pursue lumbering as a source of capital.
 View from the railroad bridge on the north side of La Crosse showing the shoreline of the many sawmills. Image from La Crosse Illustrated (n.p. : Art Publishing Co., 1887). |
While the lumber industry didn't directly affect most folks in the rural areas of the county, it did indirectly. Lumber greatly fueled the economy of both the city of La Crosse and the village of Onalaska. It was not uncommon for new immigrants to arrive in La Crosse and then to go and work for one of the large lumber mills, earning eventually enough money to buy his own property or farm. It was dangerous, long and hard work, and the newspapers are full of accounts of industrial accidents.
The lumber industry also helped to encourage railroads to build in and near La Crosse. These seemed to concentrate again on the north side of the city and each line had their own set of tracks. It was not until 1876 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a bridge over the Mississippi for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad.
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 Main Street in downtown La Crosse looking east toward St. Joseph's Catholic Cathedral. Image from La Crosse Illustrated (n.p. : Art Publishing Co., 1887). |
As previously noted, the village of La Crosse's first industry began with the fur trade business of Nathan Myrick and his partner Harmon J. B. Miller. However, the pineries of the Black River some thirty miles above La Crosse were soon to overshadow the economic benefits of the fur trade. Already in 1848, Myrick noted 11 sawmills on the Black and its tributaries. Since the Mississippi River boats could not navigate the Black River, cargo boats were unloaded at La Crosse. As a result, merchants in La Crosse became middlemen, storing and forwarding goods for a commission, while others bought supplies from towns south of La Crosse and resold them to the Black River lumbermen. Other industries also began as a result of the connection of the townsite to the river, and repairing and renovating older boats and building new ones became a thriving industry. All of these factors, including migration and immigration, helped to spur growth of the village.
La Crosse relied heavily upon water transportation for its contacts with others. The earliest road to the village was originally a Native American trail from Prairie du Chien along the Mississippi River. Slowly the townsite grew from "six or eight houses" in 1850 to an astonishing population of 745 just three years later, according to an unofficial census taken by Rev. Carr in 1853. In 1851, La Crosse County was formed from Crawford County by the state legislature. As early as 1854 a seven-person committee was formed to draft a charter for applying for city status, skipping over the village status. Nothing was accomplished at that time, and the state census of 1855 indicated that the population of the community now totalled 1637.
Then on March 7, 1856, a member of the Wisconsin Assembly from La Crosse, Dr. Dugal C. Cameron, who had been a member of the Committee of Seven, introduced into the Assembly a bill to grant a city charter to La Crosse. The bill was approved by the governor on March 14, 1856. The first city election for mayor then took place Tuesday, April 1, 1856. Thomas Benton Stoddard was elected the first mayor of La Crosse with 216 votes. He won by one vote over John M. Levy.
In October of 1858, the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad was completed, thus people and goods could travel from the east to La Crosse without having to make a steamer connection from farther down river. A more direct route from the Lake Michigan port city of Milwaukee to La Crosse afforded a much faster trip. Securing rail connections into the city was an important factor to the survival of the community. On November 18, 1870, La Crosse formally celebrated the completion of the Southern Minnesota Railroad from Wells, Minnesota, to the Mississippi River, thus connecting La Crosse with the west. A railroad bridge was completed in 1876 across the Mississippi River at North La Crosse. Until that time, car ferries and winter ice bridges were used to cross the river. A swing bridge for both wagon and foot traffic was completed from Mount Vernon street to Barron's Island (later renamed Pettibone Island) in 1891 and was financed by municipal bonds. It was a toll bridge until 1919, and this connection to Minnesota essentially put an end to the ferry business.
This is still under construction -- thank you for your patience!!
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| La Crosse Public Library | Anita Taylor Doering |
| Disclaimer | Archivist |
| Bibliography | September 2000 |
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