Peerless Knife

Michelle Kelly

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

In 1900, the little Mississippi port-town of La Crosse, Wisconsin was put on the map. At the World’s Fair in Paris, France,the John Gund Brewing Company, established by John Gund in 1880, put their best foot forward and presented their brand, Gund’s Peerless Beer, to the judges in a beer contest. They won the first-place medal. When Peerless won again at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, the home of Budweiser, the world took notice.

La Crosse was no longer a sleepy river town, but a thriving national brewing town. The Gund Brewing Company could no longer run on a small retinue of employees, so by 1910, their staff grew to nearly 500. Peerless was no longer just a regional and state brand, but had spread throughout the Midwest and surrounding areas. Production skyrocketed to over half a million barrels.

Sadly, Gund’s success was short lived. During Prohibition, the company could not sustain itself and went under. The Peerless brand, itself, disappeared for almost fifteen years.

During Gund’s wild success of the early 1900s and 1910s, the C. & J. Michel Brewing Company had been lying low. They had been producing regional and state brands such as “Elfenbrau” and “Wisconsin’s Best,” but they were not as well-known as their award-winning counterpart. However, when Prohibition hit in 1919, Charles and John Michel had the great business sense to be able to keep their brewery afloat. They changed the company name to the La Crosse Refining Company and moved production from beer to malt syrup. They were able to survive Prohibition.

Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the company changed their name again, to La Crosse Breweries Inc. and purchased the rights to the Peerless brand.

La Crosse Breweries Inc. was able to nationalize Peerless Beer, sending it as far east as the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfortunately, only a few years after Peerless was back on top, it fell. La Crosse Breweries Inc. lost their brewmaster and their sales decreased. Following a strike in 1956, the brewery finally closed their doors. Peerless was once again lost after being the driving brand for two important breweries of La Crosse.

This small folding knife, only 2.5 inches long, is an example of the type of promotional material La Crosse Breweries Inc. sent to bars who sold their products. This particular knife travelled from the La Crosse Breweries Inc. factory in La Crosse, Wisconsin to Gene’s Tavern in Garfield, New Jersey in the early 1940s and then back again in 2018.

We know this because in January of this year we received a thick envelope from a gentleman in Garfield with the knife carefully packed inside. His letter explained that it had belonged to his grandfather, who frequented Gene’s Tavern, and probably got the knife there. The donor said he thought it would be nice if the pocketknife came back home. We think so too!

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on May 5, 2018.

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

Painting of Grandad Bluff

Carole Mullen

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

This idyllic oil painting by La Crosse artist Charles Loveland evokes a dreamy image of a simpler time.

A woman and three children dressed in white pick flowers in a field in front of the bluffs. The foreground bluff appears to be Grandad Bluff, based on quarrying evident at the top.

Loveland was born in La Crosse in 1881, and he resided here his entire life. In addition to being an artist, he was instrumental in two La Crosse businesses, the Aiken-Gleason Camera Co. and Northern Engraving.

As a young man, Loveland worked for the Aiken-Gleason Camera Co. at Seventh and La Crosse streets — by 1901, it was the Imperial Camera Co. — in the production of folding-view cameras. Imperial was sold a few years later, becoming Conley Camera of Spring Grove, Minn.

For a few years, Loveland was listed in city directories as either an artist or a shipping clerk for the Pamperin & Wiggenhorn Cigar Co. In 1907 he married Clara Ebner, and the young couple began a family, eventually raising four children — Ruth, Charles Jr., Donald and Warren.

Loveland began work with the fledgling Northern Engraving Co., a photo-engraving and nameplate manufacturer, as a commercial artist and partner with James Novak about 1915. He soon moved his wife and then three young children to 21st Street at the edge of the city near the base of Grandad Bluff.

At this time, the eastern edge of La Crosse was open fields and farmland. Loveland’s oil painting is undated, but it may have been from this period. The woman in the painting is dressed in clothing popular in that era, as are the children. Loveland may have imagined this scene, or he may have portrayed his wife and three children in a field near their new home.

Loveland rose through the ranks to become Northern Engraving’s treasurer by 1922 and its president by 1932. He and his family later moved to an elegant home near Cass Street and West Avenue. He remained Northern Engraving’s president through at least 1948.

Loveland died in 1951, and he is buried in La Crosse’s Oak Grove Cemetery.

Whether Loveland’s painting represented an informal family portrait or a fantasy, its historical interest is undeniable. The painting shows us how different the young city of La Crosse and its bluffs looked about 100 years ago.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on April 28, 2018.

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

War Eagle artifacts are time capsule from 1870

Bob Mullen

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

The steamboat War Eagle burned and sank in the Black River 148 years ago in La Crosse. With the loss of several lives, it was a tragic event. It also was a major loss for the city because the fire spread onto the shore and destroyed the railroad station, grain elevator, warehouse and a train that had just let off passengers to board the boat.

Today, the boat still lies where it settled in 30 feet of water, a short distance north of Riverside Park. Buried in the mud is the 219-foot hull of the boat and most of the contents that didn’t get destroyed in the fire or disintegrate over time.

Some of those materials were salvaged in the early 1980s by local scuba diver Dennis Brandt. Brandt brought up several hundred pieces from the wreckage and later placed them on loan to the La Crosse County Historical Society to display at the Riverside Museum in Riverside Park. Shortly before Brandt died in 2012, he donated the items to the society. Since 1988, there have been restrictions placed on the recovery of artifacts from the War Eagle and other Mississippi River shipwrecks.

While no great treasure was found, these items are a valuable historical treasure, an important time capsule from an 1870s riverboat. After all of those years under water, the glass, ceramic and metal objects survived mostly intact, while wood, fiber and other organic material fared less well.

If you visit the Riverside Museum, you can see most of what Brandt found.

On exhibit are many glass bottles of all shapes and colors, used for shipping liquid refreshments such as whiskey, beer, wine and soda water, but also specially shaped bottles that once were packed with pickles, condiments, patent medicines, ink and dozens of materials considered essential for life in 1870. Kerosene lamps were the preferred form of lighting, and many of their glass chimneys, shades and bases — fancy and plain — survived.

You also will find white stoneware from the boat: pitchers, plates and platters, cups and saucers. There are jugs and two decorated crocks from Fairfield, Iowa. A glazed ceramic spittoon in the shape of a seashell that once caught the passengers’ tobacco chaws is on display, damaged but still beautiful.

Metal objects that Brandt recovered include blacksmithing tools, carpenters’ tools, and tools used by the boat’s engineers made of cast and wrought iron. Other period items include axes, wrenches, augers and chisels. Cookware of the day included cast iron and graniteware pots and pans. There are huge kitchen knives, metal cups, spatulas and tableware, along with empty tins that once held sardines and oysters.

All of these items and more bring enticing clues to everyday life of 150 years ago. Plan to visit the Riverside Museum this summer and see these treasures formerly buried in the mud of the Black River at La Crosse. They have many stories to tell.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on April 21, 2018.