‘Years Ago’ is a compilation of newsy tidbits as published in the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout on this week ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years ago.
TEN YEARS AGO
JULY 8, 2010 – The Seneca Community Club announced the King and Queen of the 17thAnnual Ridge and Valley Rally. They are Randy and Susan Starke… The Nifty Neighbors 4-H Club presented the play ‘Stone Soup’ at the Soldiers Grove Library last Tuesday. The group will be performing this play at the State Fair in Milwaukee… Crisse Reynolds, Al Isen and Bill Rice will be performing as the ‘Lynxvillians’ for the summer concert series in Prairie du Chien on St. Feriole Island.
TWENTY YEARS AGO
JULY 6, 2000 – The Crawford County Fair Board has decided this year to replace the Friday night country and western show with professional wrestling from Windy City Wrestling. There will be seven matches with top national stars wrestling to include Drusala, Polish Crippler, Mike Anthony and Steve Boz… Viroqua’s Jeffrey Lawrence, MD, a member of the Gundersen Lutheran staff and an orthopaedic surgeon at Vernon Memorial Hospital, has developed an instrument to make arthroscopic surgery more precise. Dr. Lawrence had the idea for his precision knife, called by the trademark name ‘AcuPortal,’ for some time, but it was during a surgery that was particularly challenging that he decided to act on his idea… North Crawford Girls Track awards were presented at a team picnic in Gays Mills. Coaches are Shelly Biggin and Ed Heisz. Award recipients are Denise Hady, Holly Hartley, Jen Herbst, Melissa Heisz, and Jacqueline Bunts.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
JULY 5, 1990 – The trout hatchery built by the Gays Mills Area Sportsmen’s Club, is almost finished. The fish will arrive from the DNR sometime in early July. Participants in the program include Randy Hillman, Jim Hillman, Gene Lomas, Junior Giddings, Paul Lomas, Emmett Heisz, Matt Lomas, Bob Johnson, Doug Martin, Ralph Lomas, Paul Welsh, Maurice Sanborn, Judd Johnson, Dutch Heisz, Ivan Heisz and Mike Heisz… The Soldiers Grove Village Board accepted a bid to hire Craig Walke of Davy Engineering, LaCrosse, for engineering services on the village’s water system project, at a cost of $49,000. The bid includes design fees, bidding fees, construction and inspection charges. This amount represents approximately 15 percent of the project cost of $311, 500.
FORTY YEARS AGO
JULY 7, 1980 – Winning recipe in the ‘original hors d’oeuvres’ category in the Crawford County Dairy Bakeoff comes from Ida Clark, rural Gays Mills for Ida’s Cheese Balls... Kay Garvey of rural Eastman was as one of five top Wisconsin farmers named Master Agriculturists for 1980 by the Wisconsin Agriculturist magazine. Kay has lived his entire life on the farm where he and his wife Patricia are the third generation of Garveys to farm the land since it was purchased from the U.S. Government in 1858… Area volunteers were joined in Soldiers Grove by landscape architect John Schaefgen and his wife Kathy for a tour of village-owned property. The group was seeking out plants and trees for transplanting in the fall at the New Town site. They tagged numerous trees and other growth. This was the first outing of volunteers who are undertaking the task of creating a suitable, practical landscape for the New Town site, and planned by Schaefgen to provide protection from the wind, prevent erosion and result in an attractive setting, all at a minimum of cost.
FIFTY YEARS AGO
JULY 8, 1970 – Four candidates had filed for the North Crawford School Noard up to the deadline Tuesday afternoon. There are three board posts to be filled. The candidates are Harold Dull, Soldiers Grove; Wendell Showen, Gays Mills; Donald Johnsrude, who farms in the North Clayton area, and David Moore, manager of the PCA office at Gays Mills… Lennie Harris, 13, son of Mrs. Jane Harris of Gays Mills, shows off his nine-pound northern pike caught in the Kickapoo. Lennie says, “I caught an 11-pounder last week.”… Campbell’s Grocery split two games last week. but still managed to stay in first place in the Midget League Baseball competition. Current standings: Campbell’s Grocery 2-1; Bank of Gays Mills 2-2; Gambles Store 2-2; G-C Co-op 2-2; Brockway Trucking 0-1.
SIXTY YEARS AGO
JULY 7, 1960 – A large sandstone cave, hidden from sight of man for untold millenniums, saw the light of day briefly this past week. The mouth of the cave was revealed when crews of H. Turner and Son were making a cut for the new route of U.S. 61 on the Bernard Monahan farm near Rolling Ground. The first crewmen who crawled down inside found themselves in a huge room with an arched sandstone roof at least 30 feet across. A pool of cold water about 30 feet back in the cave gave evidence of a spring, and also a clue to the formation of the cave itself. Unfortunately the underground cavern, which was at least 35 feet below the original ground level, lay squarely in the path of the relocated highway. Saturday, it was blasted out with three tons of dynamite.
