Friday, November 19, 2010

'Hometown History' from the La Crosse Public Library Archives


Link to November 15 La Crosse Tribune article, "La Crosse's last blacksmith shop closed down in 1949".

Excerpt:  Manke's shop on the North Side was a popular gathering spot for neighborhood kids who would watch with fascination as the master blacksmith shod as many as 200 horses in a single day.

The advent of the automobile slowly put an end to Manke's horse-shoeing days. Ironically, he remained in business by fixing broken truck, bus and car springs instead. Area farmers would also come into his shop when they needed a plow point sharpened or a wagon part fixed. Manke especially enjoyed this kind of work because it was more like traditional blacksmithing
.

LINK


Lewis Atherton's Main Street on the Middle Border (1954) provides an evocative description of the era in American history when 'the horse was king'.  (LINKcat has 2 copies:  Madison and Portage.  Great reading for lovers of social history.)

In fact, here's an outline of a section of chapter 2.  (I read the book for pleasure in the late 1970s.  No, really!)

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