Glen's Tavern Button

Emily Patwell

Catalog Number: 1990.087.781

The North Side of La Crosse has a proud and unique heritage.

Taverns of North La Crosse was the theme of last fall’s La Crosse County Historical Society Historic Pub Crawl. One of the featured taverns, the Verse Lounge & Grill, occupies a building with a storied history — it once housed a popular tavern known as Glen’s Bar and Pizza.

This week’s item is a button from a time when Glen’s was in business.

About 1924, Glenn A. Bloss initially ran a billiards room at 500 Copeland Ave.; this was another featured location in the most recent Pub Crawl, now occupied by Bottoms Up.

In 1950, Bloss purchased the building on 717 Rose St. (today The Verse Lounge and Grill) and opened Glen’s Tavern.

He ran the tavern with his son, Vernon “Vern” Bloss, until sometime in the late 1950s, when he retired, and Vernon took over the business. The name of the business changed many times. At some point after acquiring the business, Vernon changed the name to Glen’s Bar and Pizza.

Although today many bars in La Crosse use legal forms of gambling, the law was often much stricter during the time Vernon owned the tavern. Glen’s was charged more than once with illegal gambling, such as the operation of a pinball machine and the use of tavern lottery contests.

Despite this, Vernon’s business was popular and Vernon himself advocated for the people of the North Side.

When the Oktoberfest Parade Committee decided to move the parade southward in 1964, many North Siders, including Vernon, felt rebuffed by the city. A frequent letter writer to local papers, he made the case in one letter to return parades to the North Side. He continued to rally for the parades’ return. After many complaints, the city later rerouted the parade to once again serve the North Side.

In 1971, Vernon was appointed the first Torchlight Parade marshal in recognition of his community efforts.

This button for Glen’s Bar and Pizza, which probably dates from the early 1960s, came from the late local historian and politician Gordon Feinberg.

Feinberg, who specialized in Jewish studies and was a North Side 2nd District supervisor, was also an avid button collector, keeping some from his favorite local events and businesses.

Feinberg left his collection of roughly 1,000 buttons to the La Crosse County Historical Society in his will.

It is unknown how often Feinberg frequented the bar, but after nearly 40 years of operation, it was clear that Glen’s Bar and Pizza was a beloved part of the North Side for manyand that Vernon Bloss’ efforts to return parades to the area have created an impact that still echoes in the North Side today.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 8, 2018.

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

Turkish Nook in the Hixon House

Peggy Derrick

Photo by Roger Grant-Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

One of the best parts of giving tours at Hixon House, La Crosse’s premiere historic house museum, is getting to show off the home’s Turkish Nook.

It always gets lots of “oohs and ahhs” from visitors who are enchanted by its beauty and amazed that it is such an old decorating scheme, going back to the late Victorians.

Eastern-themed rooms existed long before Pier-One Imports or the fad for draping Indian “bedspreads” about a room to give it an exotic look. In the latter half of the 19th century, travel to the Middle East became increasingly affordable and safe, and affluent Americans began making the trip in large numbers. Their travels and the souvenirs they brought home helped feed the American fascination with the “exotic east,” and the decorating trend that encouraged Oriental rooms and “nooks,” such as the one in Hixon House.

This historic photo includes, from left, May Crosby, Joseph Hixon, Ellen Hixon and an Egyptian guide.

In 1898 and 1899, Ellen Hixon added Turkey and Egypt to the European Grand Tour she made with her niece Mary Crosby and son Joseph. A widow by then, with five grown sons, Ellen Hixon enjoyed travel and was lucky to be able to afford it. We have a photo of her and her companions atop camels by the Great Pyramids, and letters that describe shopping in the bazaars and purchasing some of the items that make up the décor of the Turkish Nook.

It’s a small room, added in 1900-01, that serves as an elegant pass-through to the dining room. The built-in bench is upholstered in antique Kilim woven carpets, with embroidered pillows. The walls and ceiling are gold (gold leaf, in the case of the ceiling), and decorated with antique Persian weaponry and period photos of the streets of Cairo. Stained glass windows let in light and help create an exotic atmosphere.

By far the most commented-on item is the standing wooden lattice screen to the right of the photo. “What is that?” people always ask, and telling them it’s a “harem screen” just adds to the confusion.

In fact, wooden lattice screens were common enclosures on Egyptian balconies and in courtyards; they allowed light and air to pass through while preserving the privacy of Muslim women who lived with strictures against being seen by strange men. The lattice screens allowed them to observe and participate in the life of the street and courtyard while maintaining their religious rules.

The screens themselves are intricate and beautiful, and to the curious Westerner, they symbolized the mysteries of a private world that was hidden from them but imagined to be quite exotic and titillating — hence the Western name, harem screen.

This fascination with the mysteries of the east had a bit of a risqué touch. One historian, Karina Corrigan, writes that the Victorian image of the Near East was one of “turbaned men smoking hashish in hookahs and their many wives lounging on divans, gazing longingly out of the latticed windows of harems.” Mrs. Hixon may well have been showing off her sophistication by having such a suggestive item in her “Oriental room.”

By the 1920s the fad for the Turkish style in home décor was fading. It became symbolic of heavy-handed Victorian excess, and Oriental rooms and cozy corners were replaced with more modern styles. The risqué Turkish Nook appeared old-fashioned, fussy and quaint. They began to disappear.

The Turkish Nook in the Hixon House is a rare, fragile survivor of what was once a very popular style of decorating. Since the 1960s, we have seen Near and Far Eastern textiles and décor come back into fashion, used is somewhat different ways than in the 1890s-1910s. But La Crosse’s Turkish Nook has survived long enough to be “cool” again.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 1, 2018.

Florence Thompson's WWII WAVES Uniform

Amy Vach

Catalog Number: 2018.044.01

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

This week’s artifact is a World War II woman’s naval uniform worn by La Crosse resident Florence Thompson.

During World War II, the U.S. Navy established a military unit for female members, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. The WAVES was initially developed to free up clerical positions so that more men would be available for combat positions. Before WAVES, women were only allowed to serve as nurses in the Navy. To be eligible to enlist, women needed to be between 20 and 36 years old and have no children under the age of 18. Throughout the war, roughly 100,000 women served in varying roles. Some women performed clerical duties and others served as instructors.

Shortly after graduating from Logan High School in La Crosse, three young women enlisted in the WAVES in 1943: Lucille Will, Helen Jorgenson and Florence Thompson. The family of Florence Thompson donated her uniform along with a scrapbook and ephemera from her time serving in the WAVES to the La Crosse County Historical Society recently after she passed away in 2017.

After finishing her training at Hunter College in New York City, Thompson wrote home that she enjoyed her work very much and was thrilled about the uniforms and training.

In December 1943, Thompson was assigned to administrative work as a yeoman in the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington, D.C. While serving, Thompson had quite the experience on the East Coast, according to her scrapbook, which is filled with programs from sporting events, concerts and plays. In addition to souvenirs from her activities, Thompson also saved postcards and cards from home. A few of the postcards feature G. Heileman Brewing Co.

Five months after WWII was over, Thompson was honorably discharged. She returned home and enrolled at Luther College in Decorah, where she received her bachelor’s degree. After college, Thompson returned to La Crosse and worked for the county as a social worker for 25 years. Florence married Robert T. Moe in 1951 in La Crosse. After his death in 1999, she married Preston M. Olson, a former high school classmate of hers.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on November 24, 2018.

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