Listman Mill’s Marvel Flour Bag

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Robert Mullen

Catalog Number: 2011.009.01

While most Americans today purchase their bread at the grocery store, that wasn’t the case at the turn of the twentieth century. A person could purchase a loaf of bread at the local bakery, but a less expensive alternative for most households was baking bread in their own kitchen. The homemaker of 1900, whether living in a rural area or in town, had various duties and expectations, and among them was the baking of bread for the family.

This week’s artifact is a paper bag from about 1912, that once held twenty-four and one half pounds of flour made at the Listman mill in La Crosse. The brand name “Marvel Flour” was Listman’s trademarked brand. It was marketed and sold nationally, with agents in several eastern cities. Locally, a bag of flour like this one could be purchased by a family at one of many small grocery stores in the city.

Marvel flour used advertising to great effect. Its advertisements called the flour “the great bread maker.” Made of Minnesota hard spring wheat, the Listman Mill ads claimed that their flour was “wonderfully light and white” and could make more loaves per barrel of flour than any other brand. In addition, every retail bag contained coupons inside. Some local agents even set up contests offering prizes for the best loaf of bread made with Marvel flour.

The Listman mill was located on the riverfront between King and Jay Streets. Begun in 1879 by William Listman and his partners, the new mill could produce up to 550 barrels of wheat flour each day. After it burned in 1889, the mill was rebuilt and then produced 1500 barrels a day, and in a few years increased that production again. After 1893, the mill continued under different management until 1918, when the non-local owners shut it down during a strike. The building continued to be used for wheat storage and shipment until it burned in 1935. It stood for another 40 years until it was razed in 1995.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 30, 2019.

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

Dr. John Callahan's Medical Bag

Kyle Willoughby

Catalog Number: 1990.081.01

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

For this week’s “Things That Matter,” we are traveling back in history with a doctor’s bag that belonged to Dr. John Callahan, a local physician who began his medical practice in La Crosse in 1891 and retired 52 years later.

Dr. John Callahan was born in Appleton in 1859 and received his medical degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago.

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

After graduating, Dr. Callahan came to La Crosse to begin his medical practice. A few years later he set up office within his residence at 933 Rose St. This house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

From his home office, Dr. Callahan held appointments and made home visits for about eight years before he sold the home to Dr. George and Eva Lueck for $5,000.

In the years leading up to his retirement in 1943, Dr. Callahan and Dr. Lueck were both physicians and likely partners holding offices at 422 Main St. and at the Rose Street address. It was during this time, that Dr. Callahan served as the city physician for La Crosse for several years.

Dr. Callahan’s medical bag is a hard-shell case lined with black leather. It would have accompanied him on his house visits. Included in the case are a series of sterilized bandages, doctors’ gloves and medical supplies. However, most of the case is occupied by more than two dozen glass vials for liquid and tablet medicines.

Some of the medicine bottles still have the paper label with Dr. Callahan’s name and the original contents.

These handwritten labels are difficult to read, but you can make out some. There are “Sal Hepatica,” and “Phenolax,” both early commercial laxatives, and one vial is simply labeled “tonsillitis.” We can only wonder what those pills contained.

Callahan, like many other physicians during his time, made house calls when a patient was too sick or injured to travel. Carrying this bag to patients’ homes would have assisted him in providing a quick cure for the sick, or a brief remedy for more ailments in which more serious practice was required.

This method was considered less expensive as patients did not require expensive health insurance or funds to travel to a physician in another town or city. People, including the doctors, also felt that personal attention in the home was less stressful and more effective.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 23, 2019.

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

The Purple Leona

Amy Vach

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Catalog Number: 2018.015.02

A previous installation of Things That Matter has featured the Leona — an undergarment invented and produced in La Crosse by Leona Foerster Linker.

This week’s Things That Matter is a Leona that was repurposed with a splash of color.

The Leona is a 3-in-1 early 20th century women’s undergarment that combined three necessary women’s undergarments, the chemise (worn under the corset), bloomers and drawers into one convenient article of clothing.

A lady would put her corset on over the Leona, and then a corset cover, or camisole, and petticoats would be added.

Leonas came in various sizes and degrees of fanciness. Some were very simple, while others were trimmed with fancy laces and made of fine fabrics.

Although the garments varied in design, they were all white. The price of the undergarment ranged from $1 to $12, depending upon the material and degree of decoration: most Leonas cost about $2.

The Leona soon became obsolete as women’s undergarments and outfits drastically changed in the 1920s, and a minimum of three layers was no longer necessary.

About 50 years ago, the Leona pictured here found a second life on the beaches of Hawaii in the 1970s.

The Satory family purchased a box of brand-new Leonas at the Linker estate sale.

The Leonas purchased at the estate were along the lines of the company’s basic product and were trimmed around the neck and sleeves with a narrow band of lace. Christine Satory took the Leonas to Hawaii and tie-dyed them various colors. After they were dyed, she sold them as swimsuit cover-ups.

According to a sales catalog from the Leona Garment Co., the Leona is “wonderfully convenient — on and off in an instant.” This quality of the Leona made it an ideal swimsuit cover, for a generation that was unfamiliar with the article’s original purpose.

John Satory, brother of Christine, donated this purple Leona and a brand-new white Leona to La Crosse County Historical Society in 2018.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 16, 2019.

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

*This article was updated on July 23, 2020.