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Downtown 1958

Downtown 1958

Friday, January 24, 2014

Menasha's First!

April 8, 1960 Appleton Post-Crescent
While I personally do not recall this laundromat, I do have distinct memories of the laundromats on Racine Street near the Schumacher Hotel and on Old Plank Road near Third Street, just before the railroad tracks.   (This one wasn't exactly on Main Street, either.) 

It might seem silly to celebrate the opening of such a business, but it nevertheless met a need in the community and was a product of its times.  And in celebrating all things Menasha, it's just another bit of whimsy in our shared history. 

2 comments:

  1. When I was a kid in the late 70s, we'd use that laundromat. We lived two blocks down from it on water street. I distinctly recall the soda machine it had and how great the Mt. Dew was that came from it.

    I haven't driven by there in a while, but last time I did, a few years ago, it was still a laundromat.

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  2. I lived on First Street, which was near this place. As I recall, the laundromat shared a building with Bill Prosser's Beer Depot, with laundromat on the west side of the building. A somewhat amusing story is the time some kids decided to turn off the laundromat lights so that people driving by wouldn't see them break into the machines. They were caught when a Menasha City Police officer was driving by and decided to check why the lights weren't on. And, yes, the sodas from the machine inside the laundromat seemed to taste better than those purchased elsewhere, although I don't know why.

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