We’d been in La Crosse for barely an hour, and everyone we’d met was a certified character.
In Riverside Park, Frank and Faith Rimmert and Jonathan and Barb Rimmert were decked out in top hats, waistcoats and crinolines to meet the Mississippi Queen paddlewheeler, portraying the 19th Century locals who would have assembled.
“If your relatives were coming for a visit, you’d come to greet them,” said Faith Rimmert, a volunteer for the La Crosse County Historical Society. “People picked up things being shipped in, or maybe you’d be looking for a servant–you’d say, `I want that person for a servant in my house.'”
As the history buffs smiled for the camera, a wedding party in black dresses, black fishnet stockings and purple ankle boots hurried toward their own photo session in a gazebo.
Then, a lime-green 1953 fire truck full of German shepherds drew up, blasting its horn. It was Charles Weeth of La Crosse Skyrockers, a volunteer group that puts on special effects and fireworks shows at city festivals.
“I can do a hundred effects off this thing,” he said. “I’ve got really loud whistles that set off a fountain of silver sparks and one that goes whoosh in a great ball of fire. Oh, we have a lot of fun here.”
He invited us to hop in and said he was still recovering from Oktoberfest, which had ended six days before. When I asked if it was true the festival had become more sedate in recent years, he had to think about it for a while.
“Well, there aren’t the riots and tear gas and all,” he said. “But you know how it is when alcohol and testosterone and estrogen get all tied together.”
La Crosse always has been a destination for drinkers, with as many as eight breweries, three colleges and a downtown with so many consecutive bars it once held a Guinness world record.
Not long ago, a reputation was nearly all La Crosse had. Damage from a 1965 flood forced the city to demolish many historic buildings, turning the riverfront into an empty patch of sand.
A new mall off the interstate drew business from downtown, and the big department stores closed. Even its status as a drinking town took a hit in 1999, when its last brewery closed briefly.
But downtown La Crosse is looking spruced up these days, with new brick pavers and period street lamps. The brewery is back, partly owned by employees and renamed City Brewery for its 1858 origins.
The sand patch is a verdant park surrounded by hotels; it’s the home of one of the last steamboats, the Julia Belle Swain, which offers cruises up and down the river. The giant Mississippi Queen and Delta Queen stop to let their passengers go sightseeing, evoking the era of Mark Twain, who got off a boat in 1882 and pronounced La Crosse “a choice town.”
We were there during Historic Downtown La Crosse Days, so we joined a tour led by architectural historian Barbara Kooiman.
The town is named for the game French traders saw the local Ho-Chunk playing. The first resident set up a fur post to trade with them, and by the time Twain arrived, La Crosse was a thriving rail and river center with nearly two dozen lumber mills.
Some of the downtown he saw–“blocks of buildings, which are stately enough, and also architecturally fine enough, to command respect on any city”–is still there: the 1879 Italianate Pamperin Cigar Co., still with original copper panels under its windows; the 1872 Healy Block, where Dr. Frank “White Beaver” Powell ran a drugstore; and the 1878 John Walter Building, now with a 1933 Art Moderne facade.
Behind the historic facades that day, costumed characters were portraying Frank Powell and Dr. Adolph Gundersen, who founded the local hospital. John Satory, a former president of the historical society, has played Powell and merchant Mons Anderson. But this year, he was behind the counter of his Satori Arts shop on Pearl Street.
On a shelf over his head sat boxes of products once made in La Crosse–Jay-Tee Japan Green Tea, Peerless Beer and Funk’s Happy Boy Confections, made on the site of town founder Nathan Myrick’s cabin.
Another case held Doc Powell memorabilia, including a ruler stamped “White Beaver’s Cough Cream and Wonder Worker,” which Powell marketed with his friend William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who often came to visit.
Powell was a medical-college graduate, and his mother was part Seneca, known as a medicine chief, Satory said. “He believed in herbal medicines, so people thought he was a quack.”
On the sidewalk outside the shop, people lounged in the sun, eating ice-cream cones from an old-time parlor. Overhead, painted ladies looked on from murals on the boarded-up windows of the 1887 Schwartz Block, once a disreputable hotel.
“This neck of the woods was really a bad part of town,” Satory said. “They used to arrest GIs if they were found in the area.”
It was only a block to the river and the dock of the Julia Belle Swain, a favorite sight around town. Built in 1971 around 1915 steam engines, its machinery is something to see: massive red and white pistons on long yellow rods, slowly sliding into their steam cylinders with an oily wheeze and back out.
On board, listening to the rhythmic exhalations of steam from the smokestack, it was easy to slip into the 19th Century.
As the town faded into the distance, a white-haired Mark Twain appeared, spouting familiar aphorisms, and a banjo player performed old standards. The relaxed atmosphere was spoiled only by the boat’s piano player, who wore a “Bush-Cheney” button on her blouse; “Garfield-Arthur” would have been much more appropriate.
We couldn’t leave town without touring City Brewery and seeing its World’s Largest Six Pack. When it was Heileman, the only La Crosse brewery to survive Prohibition, the giant storage cylinders bore the Old Style logo; today, they look like cans of La Crosse Lager.
The last time I visited, our tour guide told us that students once tried to tap the cans with an ax, nearly blowing up the neighborhood.
Our guide this time, Luke Rosynek, said he hadn’t heard that story, but he offered a stupid drinking trick of his own: One Oktoberfest, he said, some men sawed the stein out of the hand of King Gambrinus, the potbellied medieval connoisseur whose wooden statue stands outside the brewery. They used it to drink beer during the festival, then returned it to the king.
In La Crosse, drinking legends are legion, many revolving around the brewery, which once offered unlimited imbibing before and after tours.
Things have calmed down since, and Rosynek gave us a folksy but informative tour, explaining that City is the last large brewery in the United States to fully krauesen its beer, allowing it to carbonate naturally through a long second fermentation, producing a smoother beer.
After the tour, we each got a tray of six half-glasses, from the nicely hoppy Festbier and Pale Ale to the bland Kl Light, advertised with the slogan, “It’s hot, it’s got Umlaut!”
When the brewery was between owners in 1999, Rosynek said, many employees worked there without pay for up to eight months in a successful effort to make it more attractive to investors. No one could imagine La Crosse without a brewery.
“The city talked about demolishing it for housing,” Rosynek said. “But it’s kind of a staple in the area.”
Back downtown, we stopped by the Casino, a former speakeasy whose Art Moderne interior Barbara Kooiman had urged us to see. It wasn’t a typical bar: A sign over the bar read “No Coors, No Bud. Get Over It,” and in its handwritten menu of more than 100 international beers was the note, “Will not become prostitute to profit.”
Owner Donald Padesky, who says he has visited breweries all over the world, explained that he doesn’t stock Anheuser-Busch beer because he doesn’t like its business practices in the Czech Republic, home of pilsner beer and his favorite Rebel. Another reason, he said, is because it takes its water from the Mississippi, unlike City Brewery, which uses artesian wells under its plant.
“The beer you drink here today they’ll bottle tomorrow in St. Louis,” Padesky said.
Outside his Pearl Street bar, people still were sitting at sidewalk tables, enjoying the evening and drinking–except they were drinking coffee, not beer.
Maybe we left too early, or maybe La Crosse has calmed down even more than we thought. But no matter what, it’ll always have its reputation.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
La Crosse, Wis., is about a five-hour drive from Chicago on Interstate Highway 90.
ACCOMMODATIONS
The Radisson, Courtyard by Marriott, Holiday Inn and GrandStay Residential Suites are closest to Riverside Park.
The Guest House Motel is six blocks away on South 4th Street, adjacent to City Brewery; its rooms are comfortable, and there’s a breakfast cafe and a small outdoor pool. For now, summer rates are $56-$61 (all rates, per room for two). 800-274-6873; www.guesthousemotel.com.
The Celtic Inn B&B ($95-$125) is well located on Cass Street. 877-870-0020; www.celticbb.com.
Also on Cass Street, the Chateau La Crosse is an 1854 Gothic castle built by Mons Anderson, “the merchant prince.” It rents four B&B rooms ($125-$200), and also offers tours. 800-442-7969.
South of town, the 1917 Prairie-style Wilson Schoolhouse Inn is a lovely two-bedroom cottage with a well-equipped kitchen and living area ($120-$150). 608-787-1982; www.wilsonschoolhouseinn.com.
Farther along U.S. 14-61, the Four Gables B&B has three rooms that rent for $55-$90. 608-788-7958.
There’s camping at Goose Island, 3 miles south of downtown (608-788-7018; www.co.la-crosse.wi.us), and at Pettibone Park Resort, on Barron Island across the Cass Street Bridge (800-738-8426).
DINING
Piggy’s and the Freighthouse, both along the river, are longtime favorites. Elite Mediterranean on 5th Avenue has live jazz and a good Greek salad. Fayze’s on 4th Street has a bakery and is a good place for breakfast and lunch.
NIGHTLIFE
Concerts, plays and national touring shows perform at Viterbo College, Pump House Regional Arts Center, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Center for the Arts and the La Crosse Center; check the events at www.explorelacrosse.com.
EVENTS
June 15-Aug. 17: River City Water Ski Show, 7 p.m. Wednesdays, at Airport Beach.
June 30-July 4: Riverfest in Riverside Park.
July 30-31: Art Fair on the Green, UW-La Crosse campus.
Aug. 4-7: Great River Jazz Festival.
Aug. 26-28: Great River Folk Festival on UW-La Crosse campus.
Aug. 26-28: Antique/Art & Collectible Faire at the Hixon House.
Sept. 30-Oct. 8: Oktoberfest.
RIVER CRUISES
The Julia Belle Swain offers tours from mid-June to mid-October, some of them overnights to Winona, Minn., and Prairie du Chien, Wis. 800-815-1005; www.juliabelle.com.
The La Crosse Queen, a smaller paddlewheeler, has cruises from Riverside Park. 608-784-2893; www.greatriver.com/laxqueen.
BREWERY TOURS
City Brewery offers hour-long tours ($1), generally noon-3 p.m. Thursday-Saturday through May, then Monday-Saturday through Oct. 8. 608-785-4200; www.citybrewery.com.
TROLLEY RIDES
From June 1 through Sept. 3, Tuesdays to Saturdays 12:45-5:45 p.m., the La Crosse Trolley will take passengers to and from the city’s attractions, including Riverside Park, City Brewery and Myrick Park Zoo. The loop takes an hour, but passengers can get off and on. Tickets are $1. 608-789-7350; www.lacrossetrolley.com.
On Saturdays, the narrated River Town Discovery Tour leaves Riverside Park at 10:30 a.m. and returns at 12:30 p.m. Tickets are $9, $5 for children 4-11. Reserve at 800-658-9424 or 608-782-2366.
INFORMATION
800-658-9424; www.explorelacrosse.com.
— B.G.
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ctc-travel@tribune.com
