Stoddard Hotel Memorabilia

Amy Vach

Catalog Number: 2006.036.01-25

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Over the years, La Crosse has been home to quite a few hotels, but none can be described as more glamorous during its time than the Stoddard Hotel.

It opened in 1904 and was named after La Crosse’s first mayor, Col. Thomas Stoddard. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon stayed there, as well as celebrities including Elvis Presley and Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 2006, a few months before she died at age 98, Marian Elliott donated memorabilia from her business, the Stoddard Hotel, to the La Crosse County Historical Society.

Marian had an early start in the world of hotel ownership. Her parents owned the Foeste Hotel, a 220-room hotel in Sheboygan, Wis., along with three other hotels in Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona. Marian attended Dayton University and received a degree in commerce.

After graduation, she married Ernest Geyer and had a daughter. Shortly after they were married, Geyer suffered a fatal heart attack, and Marian moved back to Sheboygan with her young daughter.

Back home, Marian successfully operated her parents’ hotel for more than a decade. In 1959, she married the president of the Wisconsin Hotel Association, John Elliott. John and Marian were acquaintances over the years through their shared profession.

In La Crosse, John Elliott had been running the Stoddard Hotel since the late 1920s and had seen the hotel through its most extensive renovation and expansion. The couple lived at the hotel until they sold the business in 1972 and purchased the Elliott Arms Apartments.

Marian Elliott was managing and operating hotels during a time when it was unheard of for women to do so. Even though they had sold the hotel, she saved these keys and other memorabilia from their time at the Stoddard Hotel.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on November 17, 2018.

These objects can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Stoll Manufacturing Salesman's Case

Frankie Bjork

Catalog Number: 2018.045.17

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

In the early decades of the 20th century, manufacturers relied on salesmen, often traveling by train, to promote and sell their products.

Previously, Things That Matter featured miniature models of plows made by the La Crosse Plow Co. and carried throughout the Midwest by salesmen who took orders from farmers and retailers alike.

With smaller items, models were not necessary, and salesmen could carry actual samples with them.

This week’s artifact is a salesman’s case with still-shiny refrigerator and cooler hardware from Stoll Manufacturing. These hinges and handles were often chrome, to resist rust in humid environments, and they would have been sold to other manufacturers to use on their products.

This case was recently donated to the La Crosse County Historical Society by the founder’s grandson, Jim Nichols.

Matthew Stoll, owner and operator of Stoll Manufacturing Co., was born in La Crosse on March 31, 1889, to recent German immigrants.

He married Agnes Arenz in 1914, and they had three children. In 1919, Stoll was employed at Bump Manufacturing Co. creating dies. A few years later, he was a tool maker at La Crosse Hinge and Lock Co. While working at these La Crosse businesses, Stoll also started his own, similar business.

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

In 1915, Stoll Manufacturing was founded in a garage basement in downtown La Crosse. Over the years, the business expanded and moved to a building on Front Street.

Stoll expanded from hinges and locks for shipping cases to automobile accessories, such as wiper blade scrapers — an ingenious but probably ineffective tool for removing frost before cars had heated defrosters.

A ledger from Stoll Manufacturing describes sales in the Midwest to businesses such as Chicago N. Manufacturing Co., one of the largest mail order houses in Chicago in the 1920s.

Stoll Manufacturing moved once again, to a new building at 2011 West Ave. South, a location currently occupied by Inland Printing. With this move, the company expanded to include die and tool manufacturing like the refrigerator and freezer hardware in this salesman’s case. This expansion drew on Stoll’s previous work experience.

The company then purchased the building next door, to expand for a final time in 1928.

At its peak, Stoll Manufacturing employed 13 people. It was so successful during this time that it was listed in the La Crosse Tribune in 1927 as “a successor to the Stamping and Tool Company,” which had been a prominent La Crosse business until 1924.

Matthew Stoll died on Sept. 12, 1930, at age 41. He died from an illness he battled for six months, leaving his widow, Agnes, to run the company until roughly 1933. It became one of many small factories across the country that did not survive the Great Depression.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on November 10, 2018.

These objects can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Flour Sack Dish Towel

Amy Vach

Catalog Number: 1992.006.02

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

This week’s artifact is a printed pink cotton dish towel that started life as a flour sack.

There are holes on the towel left behind from the original stitching that once held this towel together as a flour sack. It was donated to La Crosse County Historical Society in 1992 by the woman who repurposed it, Winifred Mattson.

Mattson was born in 1917, and along with this towel, she gave an account of her thoughts on life as a young woman during the Great Depression in this region.

This is Mattson’s story:

“Flour during the Depression (the 1930s) was sacked in muslin bags printed with colorful designs. Since most people in a small town were quite poor, having lost their savings in a bank failure, they collected these sacks to make clothes, towels or small tablecloths to cover the oil-cloth on the kitchen table. Everyone who stopped at the house was offered coffee and bread or a sweet if available; otherwise, a child was sent uptown to buy tiny powdered sugar covered doughnuts.

“Friends would get together to exchange sacks in order to match up designs. A sack was also a nice little thing to bring to the house. The pink towel was made into a towel by me after this period was over, and I have used it until now, 60 years later; they had to be strong when they were filled with 40 pounds of flour. The Depression was not an unhappy time for me — children looked at it as normal living. One learned to cope.”

While Mattson turned this flour sack into a towel, repurposed flour sacks were turned into various items including clothing, toys, quilts, curtains, pillowcases, undergarments and diapers. These flour sacks were made with cotton and tightly woven so that they would be able to hold anywhere from 40 to 100 pounds of flour.

Manufacturers quickly realized that customers were repurposing their sacks, so they began printing colorful designs to make them more appealing and encourage repeat purchases.

It is estimated that nearly 3.5 million women and children wore clothing made from flour sacks during the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until the early 1940s.

In the 1950s, the colorfully printed cotton flour sacks were replaced by cheaper paper bags still used today.

After growing up in southern Minnesota, Mattson worked as a school librarian and French teacher in Trempealeau for 22 years.

She moved to La Crosse in 1961 and lived here until her death in 2002.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on November 3, 2018.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.