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Northside Neighborhood Center
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March 1941 — The university of the working man
In the last week of March the argument left the council chamber and went into the Public Debate column, where the Tribune printed letters from anyone willing…
Oct 94 min read
April 1, 1941 — Library referendum adopted
Tuesday, April 1, 1941. There was only one real contest on the ballot — the city treasurer's race — and La Crosse treated the day accordingly. Of 23,151 regist…
Oct 91 min read
January-March 1941 — Cut us loose from the south side
By the beginning of 1941 the north side's problem was no longer money, or sites, or the council. Its problem was the south side.
Oct 93 min read
March 14, 1941 — Disappointment has met on disappointment
A week later the council had the bond resolutions back in front of it, and somebody had a suggestion: reduce the issue from $110,000 to $75,000, on the theor…
Oct 91 min read
June 13, 1941 — Friday the thirteenth
Friday, June 13, 1941.
Oct 92 min read
March 14, 1941 — Necessary and feasible
The council met that night, March 14, 1941, and the cut to $75,000 was not made. Chapman and Cutler had been clear: the introductory resolution had to be adop…
Oct 92 min read
June 12, 1941 — The price list
On the evening of Thursday, June 12, 1941, the aldermen were driven round the north side to look at four pieces of ground, and the next night, at the regular co…
Oct 91 min read
August 1938 — Three hundred dollars and a street corner
The PWA route reopened. On the evening of Thursday, August 4, 1938, the council committees met and recommended that PWA grants be requested for two new branch l…
Oct 93 min read
April 1937 — The city had never spent a cent
Three weeks later, a library board trustee named Gysbert Van Steenwyk went to the Business Men's Club and asked them to take it up again. He pointed out some…
Oct 92 min read
1938-1939 — The people voted. Congress went home.
In the autumn of 1938 the question went to the people of La Crosse, and the people said yes. They voted a bond issue of $62,000 to cover the city's share of …
Oct 91 min read
February 1940 — Deplorable, said the Chamber of Commerce
Five months after the file closed in Washington, the argument started over for the fourth time in seven years, and this time a third organization took it up.…
Oct 91 min read
September 1937 — Two pairs of woolen stockings, and galoshes
On the evening of Wednesday, September 8, 1937, the library trustees told the council committees that both branches were "entirely inadequate and unsanitary." What followed was not the usual deputation. John M. Holley said he was ashamed to be a member of the board, once he had studied the conditions in the two branches. P. M. Gelatt said he was ready to vote to close the south branch outright if nothing was done. Andrew Lees said the board would be justified in closing both.
Oct 92 min read
March 1937 — Four days in March
By the spring of 1937 the library board had asked four times in four years. What happened next took four days.
Oct 92 min read
1933-1934 — Four requests in four years
In 1933 the Business Men's Club of La Crosse took up the library's cause and appointed a committee of two — Professor H. G. Hayden, principal of the Franklin…
Oct 91 min read
April 1937 — The council answered with a survey
On April 2 the council committees declined to submit the WPA project. Instead they asked the library trustees to carry out a survey covering both the north s…
Oct 91 min read
September 1937 — By morning the money was gone
The council committees met on the evening of Wednesday, September 8. That same week, another Common Council committee had gone to Milwaukee to sit with the Pu…
Oct 92 min read
1905 — It started in a drug store
On March 4, 1905, a collection of 225 books was deposited in Brakke's corner drug store at 1353 Caledonia Street, and the north side of La Crosse had a library. Clerks handed the books out, except on Saturday mornings, when the children's librarian came. More books went out on a Saturday morning than in the whole rest of the week put together. In 1907 it moved next door to 1351 — one number along the street — into a rented room divided by a partition, a reading room at the fr
Oct 92 min read
May 1940 — Eight typewritten pages, seven years apart
The Chamber's committee took several months over it. On the evening of Wednesday, May 29, 1940, at a dinner meeting at the Hotel La Crosse, the board of direct…
Oct 91 min read
July 18, 1941 — A boat for every family on the north side
A week after the corner was chosen, the Tribune sent a reporter and a photographer to the library the north side was about to leave.
Oct 92 min read
August 1942 — If it doesn't rain
On Wednesday, August 19, 1942, Miss Lilly M. Borresen, chief librarian of the La Crosse public libraries, told the Tribune when the north side would be moving.
Oct 91 min read
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