October 1941 — Material on hand

The bids were in, the low bidder was a La Crosse contractor, the money was voted and the corner was bought. On Friday, October 10, 1941, the council met and referred the whole thing back to committee.

Alderman Joseph C. Houska had read a dispatch out of Washington that morning. The priorities division of the Office of Production Management was limiting all future public construction to work for which there was sufficient material already on hand.

"limiting all future public construction to work for which there is sufficient material on hand"

— the priorities division, Office of Production Management, reported October 11, 1941

Houska said it might be well to refer both matters — the bids, and the resolution about the house — until the city knew whether it would be permitted to go ahead at all. Fred Kraft, chairman of grounds and buildings, said he would call all the committees together the following week, and that he would first ask the architects whether the library could be built out of materials the priorities division had not listed. City Attorney Fred E. Steele had already advised the council to ask them.

Four years and seven months after the library board's fourth request, the north side's library was waiting on a ruling from Washington about whether there was enough steel.

And the question of the house

The other item on the table that night was a resolution directing the board of public works to sell or wreck the Briebach home on the new library site. It authorized the board to sell it privately, or by bids, or to pull it down — whichever was most advantageous to the city.

Warren Smith asked that it be referred, because there was a possibility the house might be moved to the proposed north side bathing beach and remodeled into a bathhouse.

Houska added another possibility. If the construction were halted, the house might simply be left standing, and the city could rent it out until such time as the library could be built.

In October 1941 the house on the corner of Kane and Gillette was still standing, and nobody in the council chamber knew whether it would come down for a library, be floated across the north side to serve as a bathhouse, or be let to a tenant while everybody waited for a war to end.

The resolution was held in committee.