Doerflinger's Holiday Box

Robert Mullen

Catalog Number: 2006.003.04

This Christmas box from Doerflinger’s will bring back holiday memories for some.

The red and silver gift box could have held a pair of gloves, a man’s tie, or a woman’s scarf — a present for that special person in your life.

Mention the name Doerflinger’s among a group of older La Crosse residents, and you will open a floodgate of nostalgia.

These memories come from a deep sense of kinship the people of the city had for their long-established, homegrown department store, Doerflinger’s.

You will probably hear memories of children gazing at the elaborate Christmas displays in the store’s windows. Or eating lunch at the Halfway Tea Room on the balcony. Or the fascination with the ancient pneumatic tubes used by the clerks to retrieve your change when you checked out.

Or pondering the amazing selection at the candy counter on the first floor. Or riding the elevator operated by Dave, an employee hired just to deliver you to the third floor where you could hear the squeaky floorboards as you walked across the furniture department.

Many more Doerflinger memories return when walking through the store of the building’s current tenant, the Duluth Trading Co.

Doerflinger’s Department Store was started in 1881 by William Doerflinger and E. Bosshard in a small shop near Cameron Park. Because of its location, the shop was nicknamed The Park Store.

Doerflinger, who was born in 1857 on a farm near the La Crosse bluffs, purchased Bosshard’s share in the store 10 years later. After several location changes and a huge fire in 1903, the building at Fourth and Main streets in downtown La Crosse was constructed, becoming the anchor store for the business district through much of the 20th century.

William Doerflinger died in 1924, and a few years later his daughter Viola Doerflinger Fellows became president of the store. Viola’s son Samuel Fellows took over the management in 1954, and the family-run business prospered into the 1970s.

Unfortunately, debt from opening branch stores in Valley View Mall and other local shopping centers was too heavy for the company to handle.

Doerflinger’s, among the oldest family-operated department stores in the country, closed its downtown store in 1984, shortly after closing its branch stores.

This Doerflinger gift box, probably from the 1960s or 1970s, is a part of the La Crosse County Historical Society’s artifact collection.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 22, 2018.

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

A Fishing Boat Built in La Crosse

Robert Mullen

Catalog Number: 2018.021.01

If you grew up in La Crosse, you probably went fishing on the Mississippi River at some point.

If you were fortunate, you went out on a boat and found a place where the fish were biting and ate some pan-fried sunfish, perch or maybe walleye that night. Fishing has always been considered a leisure activity that also brought food to the table. You could say that fishing is in the blood of many La Crosse families.

That was certainly true for Walter Kofta, a La Crosse native born in 1928. He grew up in La Crosse and married Agnes McCabe here. He worked at the Auto-Lite plant on the city’s north side. And Wally loved to go fishing on the river in his boat.

The boat in this picture was purchased by Wally in 1952. It is a flat-bottomed wooden boat, 16 feet long, and it carries an 18-horsepower Evinrude outboard motor. Wally’s boat was handmade in La Crosse from a popular boat pattern by his friend Frank Voigt. While Voigt was not in the business of making boats, he made four more of these boats for local fishermen.

Agnes didn’t like that the boat sat quite low in the water, but she still liked going on the river with her husband and cooking the fish they caught for supper.

A bit of a daredevil, Wally even took his boat out fishing when there was considerable ice in the river. He used two home-made eight-foot pikes to drag the boat through or over the ice to get to where he wanted to fish. He recalled that he once saved his friend Frank Voigt on a winter evening when Frank got trapped for three hours on an ice floe that broke away and floated downstream.

Wally moved to Waterloo, Iowa, to work at the John Deere plant after the La Crosse Auto-Lite plant closed, but he often came back with his boat to fish in his home territory on the Mississippi.

Walter Kofta died in 2017. His family donated the boat, motor, pikes and other related material to the La Crosse County Historical Society earlier this year.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 15, 2018.

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

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.