Heileman's Old Style Malt Syrup

Michelle Kelly

Catalog Number: 2011.014.092

In a city as steeped in brewery history as La Crosse, it’s difficult to believe that alcohol was once banned.

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

The late 1800s and the early 1900s were the prime years for early breweries. Companies such as G. Heileman Brewing Co., the Gund Brewing Co. and the C&J Michel Brewing Co. opened in La Crosse in 1858, 1880 and 1857 respectively. They were three of the nearly 2,000 U.S. breweries prior to 1920. At the end of Prohibition 13 years later, only 750 breweries remained, which included Heileman and Michel Brothers.

The Volstead Act was the brainchild of Minnesota Rep. Andrew Volstead and the Temperance Movement, and was the culmination of decades of anti-alcohol legislation. Signed into law in early 1920, the act outlawed the consumption, transportation, sale and manufacturing of beverages with more than 0.5 percent alcohol. Once beer was effectively outlawed, breweries had to adapt to survive.

The G. Heileman Brewing Co. — opened in 1858 by Gottlieb Heileman and incorporated in 1890 by his widow, Johanna — was one of the largest breweries in La Crosse by 1910. Famous for Old Style beer, Heileman was quick to conform to the Volstead Act with the production of New Style, a near-beer. Heileman also produced soda and tonic beverages. However, by the late 1920s, people were learning how to produce their own beers, and Heileman decided to capitalize on this effort.

Heileman’s Old Style Malt Syrup was produced in large quantities in 2½-pound tin cans. “For malted milk ... [and] bread and fancy baking,” the advertisement for the malt syrup steered as far away from an association with the illegal home-brewing efforts as possible, while still advertising the product as a necessity for the illegal efforts. However, the malt syrup packaging featured the trademark Heileman grenadier and the Old Style label, making it easy to discern its intentions were to profit off home-brewing.

The sale of malt syrup kept Heileman afloat until the end of Prohibition in 1933. While other breweries crumbled under the pressures of a beer-less America, Heileman used its ingenuity to survive.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 23, 2017.

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

Marion Biehn

Peggy Derrick

Catalog Number: 2017.030.03

Few local painters are as widely recognized and appreciated as Marion Biehn, prolific recorder of life in the La Crosse region. She recreated scenes and buildings that local residents remembered from their childhood, recording the “way things used to be.”

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Her paintings have a strong pull of nostalgia, tempered by careful observation and faithful rendering. She painted Grandad Bluff, the Mississippi from Riverside Park, the old public library and many other local landmarks. Biehn had a special fondness for old buildings, and her renderings of them are reminiscent of portraits in the way they capture the character of each building.

Biehn started out as a portrait painter, using oils, and she was quoted as saying that it was fellow La Crosse painter Art Hebberd who first encouraged her to try her hand at watercolors. At first, she was afraid of the unforgiving medium but discovered that once she began to master it, she thoroughly enjoyed its immediacy.

This watercolor is of the old La Crosse County Courthouse, that stood on Vine Street from 1904 to 1965. Biehn painted it in 1964, and it marked the beginning of her career recording historic buildings. Tom Holstein, then president of the La Crosse Title Co., commissioned Biehn to paint many of the city’s historic buildings that were subsequently torn down.

The popularity of her subject matter meant that there was a market for prints of Biehn’s paintings, and some were produced in enormous numbers. The Bank of Galena, for more than 26 years, commissioned annual paintings that were reproduced and distributed as gifts on its annual calendar. State Bank of La Crosse also used prints of Biehn’s work as premiums for customers. Many of these still are mounted and exhibited in homes and other buildings in the region.

The La Crosse County Historical Society has set a goal to increase its small collection of artwork done by local artists or of local scenes. No other public trust has this as its mission, and local artists are a part of our heritage.

Biehn’s work fits these criteria perfectly, and we were grateful for this recent donation from the estate of Nancy Higbee Pollock. Although we have a collection of Biehn prints, this is our first original work by this artist, and we were excited to receive it.

Marion Biehn was born in 1911 in Racine, Wis. She moved to La Crosse with her husband in 1955, raising their children here, and living in La Crosse until their deaths. She was one of seven children, and was a dedicated visual artist from a very young age. She died in 1992 at the age of 81.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 16, 2017.

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

Lillian Davenport

Ivy King

Catalog Number: 2011.009.03       

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

While traveling from city to city, vaudeville shows often commissioned posters to advertise their acts. This red vaudeville poster, from 1907, was printed in La Crosse. The poster gives the names of the performers, and, in small print, lists the printer, “Life’ogravure, La Crosse Wisconsin.”

Vaudeville shows were a popular form of entertainment from the late 1800s until the mid-1900s. The shows — which featured comedy, music and sometimes even animals — represented a variety of racial and ethnic groups.

La Crosse had a number of vaudeville performers, and one of the most widely known was Lillian Davenport. While she does not appear on this poster, it represents her career, and she would have appeared on her own posters after she joined the vaudeville circuit in the 1920s.

Lillian was born Dec. 8, 1894, in La Crosse. Her grandmother, Clara Virginia Johnson, was born a slave in 1842 in Georgia. Clara was freed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. After being freed, Lillian’s grandparents moved to the La Crosse area, where she became a renowned chef.

Continuing in Clara’s tradition, Lillian’s mother had a successful catering business, which she ran out of her Vine Street house. In August 1887, both Lillian’s mother and grandmother helped plan La Crosse’s Emancipation Day celebrations.

Lillian grew up in La Crosse with her mother, and she graduated from La Crosse High School in 1913.

Lillian began her vaudeville career in the 1920s. She was the musical director of “Bowman’s Cotton Blossoms,” and it was said she played nearly every instrument in the orchestra. Later, she began performing comedy routines, and she had a many friends at a newspaper, The Chicago Defender, who helped give her career a boost.

Not only was she a performer, she also was an activist. While visiting her mother in 1941, she noticed a large number of La Crosse businesses — including bars and restaurants — had Jim Crow signs posted. She notified Wisconsin’s NAACP, which led to the removal of the signs.

Later in her life, Lillian taught music at a public school in Chicago. She died in Chicago on Sept. 28 1964, and she was buried in La Crosse alongside her family.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 9, 2017.

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