July 1942 — "Some think it is the county jail"

Five days after the aldermen toured the building, a man who lived on the north side wrote to the Tribune to say what he thought of it. His name was Con Severson, of 1729 Wood Street, and he was not pleased.

The building had put their taxes up close to a mill, he began. It cost plenty, and what had they got? He invited the people paying the city's bills to take a trip up Gillette Street — "our main street up this way" — and see for themselves.

"Some think it is the county jail. Others think it is our sewage disposal plant."

— Con Severson, 1729 Wood Street, in The La Crosse Tribune, July 29, 1942

He hoped the aldermen would see fit to put a sign on the Gillette Street side, in case some folks brought fresh meat or berries along, thinking it was a cold storage plant.

Then he walked his readers round the rest of it. The walk at the rear was a foot lower than the alley, so all the water ran down onto it.

"You all know that we never have winter on the north side."

Sure, he said, the city had an engineer — but he supposed the council had not seen fit to give him an outside assistant, because this was the north side and it cost too much.

On the Kane Street side he advised against stopping at the main entrance. There was a large bug-breeding box elder tree standing in the exact center of the sidewalk, and a person might get a skull fracture, or at least broken glasses, if he did not watch out. The contractor who laid that walk had done a swell job, Severson allowed, and he could not see for the life of him how the man had managed it with a tree in the way. But he had had his orders, so the tree stayed put, and a little later the city could square up for the injuries and the broken glasses.

Inside, he said, the first thing anyone would notice was that all the rock and pebbles must have floated on the concrete.

"but of course the linoleum will cover that (like so much)"

And he advised against the basement altogether. When the heavy rain came there had been about a foot of water down there; the wainscoting had warped and let loose, and it was still damp. A person might catch his death. The stairs leading down, he conceded, were swell. So they would sit at the top of them and think it over.

The lawn would be seen to, he was sure — once the city had finished dolling up Isle la Plume.