Free Thermometer

December 3, 1973 NM Northwestern

Who among us remembers when banks, along with other merchants, used to give away items such as this?  Of course, it was all a veiled attempt at advertising- calendars, pencils, snow scrapers and the like festooned with the company's (or bank's) name and logo and phone number and address. 

As a young boy, I liked going with my Dad to the Banta Credit Union and I usually came home with a pencil or a coin purse or maybe a pocket calendar, especially when they were headquartered on the second floor of the Mill Street side of the Hotel Menasha.  I don't recall it being quite so grand when they moved their offices out to Warsaw Street in 1972.  Maybe it was because I was older and a free pencil didn't mean as much.  (That 5% return on an account today would far outweigh that free thermometer!) 

Direct Dialing

April 5, 1962 Oshkosh Northwestern

1962 brought direct distance dialing to Menasha and the advent of...area codes.

Initial use of area codes in the United States and Canada began in 1947 with large cities.   Area codes were assigned based on the length of time a rotary dial phone took to dial the area code. Densely populated areas like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit had huge incoming call volume and were assigned numbers (212, 312, 213, 313) that could be quickly dialed from a rotary dial phone. On a rotary dial phone low digits (1, 2, 3, 4) could dial quickly as the time the rotary dial took to return to the home position was minimal. High digit numbers (7, 8, 9, 0) on rotary dial phones took much longer to return to the home position and were usually used in less densely populated areas like rural Texas (915). This numbering strategy became unnecessary when touch-tone phones arrived, as the tone allowed instant entry of digits.  Based on the above logic, with Milwaukee being the state's largest city, it made sense that it would be in the 414 area code while the more rural northern counties would be relegated to 715.  Why Menasha and the rest of the Fox Valley was included in 414 was either because it was reflective of the growing population base from Fond du Lac to Green Bay or perhaps a convenience due to geography. 

Of course, Menasha now finds itself in the 920 area code, created in 1997, and starting in 2014, I read that area code 274 has been proposed to join in the 920 area over much of eastern Wisconsin.  Implementation was planned to begin in 2012, but conservation efforts and less need for numbers because of the economic crisis caused the date to be pushed back to 2014.  Beginning then, all new telephone numbers will have the 274 area code, while old ones will keep their 920 area code. 

That phone pictured below is definitely from a more simpler time. 

 

Menasha Centennial

This is a rare color photo of the Menasha Centennial celebration in 1953.  It looks as if a speech, or awards presentation has just broken up.  Folks are heading for their cars and homes, moving north on Milwaukee Street as the participants on the stage make their way to the street. 

 July 6, 1953 Oshkosh Northwestern

A  victim of bad timing, Menasha's centennial celebration happened to coincide with Oshkosh's, so guess who got short shrift in the publicity department, at least with the Oshkosh media?                                         

                                                             

Adele Heckel Hine

Adele Heckel was an 1891 graduate of Menasha High School.  A long time teacher in the Menasha school system, She taught sixth grade and, pictured here, second grade at the Second Ward School located at Tayco and Second.  In subsequent years, she taught art in Upper Michigan and was even mentioned in P. V. Lawson's 1908 History of Winnebago County.  She later married Richard. N. Hine, manager for the Menasha Ice & Fuel Company. 

(Gotta love the stage direction of the photographer or whomever though having the first row of girls sitting there with their arms folded like that was a good idea.  The boys look waif-like; the girls just look defiant.) 

Packers Intra-Squad Game in Menasha

July 28, 1956 Oshkosh Northwestern

August 9, 1956 Oshkosh Northwestern

August 13, 1956 Oshkosh Northwestern

An intra-squad game in Menasha today would be unthinkable.  But then, this was another time, a time before big contracts and TV telecasts and a national fan base, and perhaps an attachment to the local community that could not exist in such a pure form anymore.  The game was different, played by men who had to get off season jobs to keep their lives and families going and who played without facemasks.  Heck, this isn't even that long after the leather helmet era!  No, considering the way the NFL is packaged today, it's hard to imagine this ever happening.

The Packers had had a bleak decade since their last winning record in 1947 and in 1956, would finish 4-8.  Two years later, they would manage to win only a single game.  But things were already starting to look up.  The second article makes mention of a surprise rookie player by the name of Bart Starr.  And 1959 brought Vince Lombardi in as head coach and we all know how well THAT turned out.

Lucy Lee Pleasants

A crowd gathers in honor of the laying of the cornerstone of the Elisha D. Smith Public Library in this 1898 photograph.

Before Elisha D. Smith’s and Miss Lucy Lee Pleasants’ vision was fulfilled, a freestanding public library for Menasha had been just a dream. The library, at the time, consisted of limited volumes in a few rooms on the second floor of the Tuchscherer and Schlegel department store.  Miss Pleasants (sister-in-law of George Banta, founder of the Banta Corporation) was the driving force in establishing the first library, and she became its first librarian.  Mr. Smith donated the library to the city.  She held this position until her retirement in 1919.  Instrumental in the encouragement of reading for younger children, the children's room at the library built in 1930-31, five years after her passing, was named in her honor.  Even today, Miss Pleasants' portrait hangs in the library's children's room, and the storytime room is named in her honor.

A poet and author in her own right, Miss Pleasants was a published poet with her long poem "Plutarch's Lives" and also wrote Old Virginia Days and Ways: Reminiscences of Sally McCarty Pleasants, reminiscences of her mother's life in antebellum Virigina, published in 1916.  She contributed to many library journals and monographs.  As one example, she is quoted below in Library Work with Children by Alice Hazeltine (1917, The H. W. Wilson Company):

"When a librarian is much 'dressed up' and can take time to play that she is an agreeable hostess, all children, whether little aristocrats or arabs, enter into the civilized spirit of the occasion and become more mannerly." --Miss Lucy Lee Pleasants, Menasha, Wis.

                     Miss Pleasants' formal portrait, as seen at the Menasha Public Library

Terrell's Standard Station

December 11, 1935

May 2, 1960

                                                                       July 30, 1960

June 4, 1968

Eddie Terrell's Standard station sat at the corner of Broad and Racine Streets for well over 40+ years, just across the street from the Post Office. 

Food For Every Taste

 

 

A mainstay next to the five and dime for years, the Valley Coffee Shop was an eatery and a de facto meeting place in about as central a location as was possible in downtown Menasha. 

All-City Olympic Day

 Oshkosh Northwestern June 30, 1967

June 1967 was a busy month for the kids of Menasha, getting ready to take part in the All-CIty Olympic Day.  I knew many of the participants, ages 8-10, or I would know them later when they joined me in high school at St. Mary's. The Olympic Day evidently was good to my friends Tim McClone and Terri Wirth, but it was an especially successful month for Roy Meier, as he not only won the 30 yard dash at the Olympic Day but was also cited for acts of prudence on his bike, winning the weekly Bike Safety prize from the Menasha Professional Policemen's Association.  Congrats, Terri, Tim, and Roy!  And Roy, keep riding safely! 

Successful Fishermen

This photo dates from May of 1911 and shows Main Street and Loescher's Hardware behind the two.  In today's Menasha, these fellows would have been standing near the foot of the Racine Street Bridge.  The guy on the right seems justifiably proud of their catch, though the other seems a bit concerned.  Perhaps he had just been told that he had to clean them. 

Tip-Top Revisited

Tip Top began in downtown Menasha on Main Street in 1947 and became a premier retailer of high end stereo components, later settling at Third and Racine Street across from the present-day Walgreens.  During the time of this extended article about the business in 1966, America was in the middle of a hi-fi boom, and high-end stereo equipment was a sought-after luxury. 

Banjo Joe Gazecki

Joe, at right, about 1916

Located at 408 1/2 Racine Street, the Bungalow Cycle Shop, run by Joe Gazecki, is in the center of this photo, ca.1928. Pictured are some early versions of snowmobiles.   

May 13, 1962 feature on Banjo Joe in the Post-Crescent

from a June 13, 1967 Oshkosh Northwestern feature

 

Banjo Joe Gazecki, musician, racing enthusiast, tinkerer, inventor, retailer, fix-it man, and raconteur was, until his death in 1976, a renaissance man in Menasha.  Be it racing bicycles or cars, snowmobiles, or anything with a motor in it, Joe would do it.  A lifelong musician, he learned the banjo on his own, practicing three hours a day while making a living repairing bicycles and motorcycles.  In time, he became a "trick" banjoist, playing one-handed and even behind his back, garnering him regional and national fame enough to count Red Skelton and Liberace as his friends.  In his later years, Banjo Joe made himself a familiar figure at hospitals, rest homes and institutions in the area, entertaining the patients in his free time and traveling at his own expense.  

Sailer-Whitmore Foundry

ca. 1912

from P.V. Lawson's 1908 History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin : Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People Volume II:

"The Sailer-Whitmore Machine Company succeeded to the foundry and machine shop, a brick structure located on the spur canal near Tayco Street, formerly owned and equipped by James Little & Sons in 1876 for the manufacture of feed cutters and mowing machines and a general machine shop business. It was in 1891 taken over by the MacKinnon Pulley Company, who added the business of split-iron pulleys. In 1902 the company was succeeded by Sailer & Moxley. When Mr. Moxley retired in 1906 the present incorporated company assumed the management of the shop located at 315 River Street."

This version of the company manufactured machinery for paper mills and wood working.

You Can Be Sure....

As we end another week, let's join this lone walker as he ponders the Westinghouse slogan used in conjunction with the Menasha Electric Utility.  Its offices were formerly housed in this, the R. M. Scott building at Main and Milwaukee Streets. 

I think of John F. Kennedy's quote, "We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it."  Maybe so, but within the confines of this blog, it's nice to try, at least in our memories. 

 

Newspaper Quotes About Menasha and a Fantastic Prophecy

In 1887, Mayor Lawson commissioned a book to showcase the commercial aspects of Menasha in order to entice business prospects to relocate to our fair city and set up shop here.  The book had many wood-cut drawings of factories, businesses, banks, schools, the new City Hall, and the picturesque scenary.  I mentioned this book several blog postings ago and today, I bring you selected quotes from the book, among them, one prophesying how Menasha will be 13 years hence in 1900 and a not-so-subtle dig at our neighbor to the south.

The last sentence about "...air boats propelled..." found me scratching my head.  But thank goodness for Google!  As it turns out, this is a reference to a book, published in 1871, entitled Vril: The Power of the Coming Race by Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.  This book was about a journey to an area under the surface of the Earth inhabited by an offshoot of the human race that mastered  a sort-of "universal energy" known as Vril,.  It was a very powerful influence on spiritually-inclined individuals in the late 19th and early 20th century and was a major precursor to the science-fiction genre.  I'm sure the great H.G. Wells was quite familiar with it.

And if that wasn't enough, Bulwer-Lytton was also the inspiration to Charles Schulz for all those Snoopy cartoons with him at the typewriter on top of his doghouse.  Sir Edward was responsible for that hackneyed phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night...." 

Herb's Food Town

April 5, 1962

an ad from 1960 

Herb's Food Town was just one of the many groceries that graced Menasha's neighborhoods over the years.  I'm sure we can all fondly remember a "corner store" that was near our homes or on the way to school, long before the big box retailers came to town who came to define the term "supermarket."   These small businesses couldn't lower their prices as much due to the supermarkets' higher volume.  Consequently, many closed as a result.  And while self-service, uniform stores, nationwide marketing, and lower prices were exciting, a lot was lost, as we can all attest.

New Traffic Islands

From the April 21, 1937 Appleton Post-Crescent

New safety islands being built near the Brin were intended to make traffic flow smoother and safer and give pedestrians a refuge while crossing the street.  I don't recall these other so-called "safety tunnels" ever being built however. 

Notice the last reference to Menasha High School "on Highway 41."  US Highway 41, for the time being, is still routed through Menasha down Racine Street.  Later in 1937, the portion of US-41 from Green Bay Road through Neenah and into Menasha will become an extension of State Highway 114, totally bypassing the Menasha High School area by turning east at the corner of Third and Racine.    

Exley Meats

From the 1898 Menasha Press souvenir edition: 

In 1890 Maurice A. Exley, for many years a resident of Wausau, and engaged in the meat business from boyhood up, came to Menasha and with George Rippl opened a meat market in the Schug building on Appleton street. One year later the firm built a market of their own on the corner of
Broad and Racine streets, where they now do business. Here they handle a complete assortment of meats and everything else seasonable to be found in a first-class market. Besides retailing they also do an extensive wholesale business and buy more stock from the farmers hereabouts than any other firm in the city. They ship mostly to Chicago, but some of their stock goes to points north. Mr. Exley does the buying, while Mr. Rippl attends to the wants of customers in the shop. Steam power is used and five hands given constant employment.

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from the 1900 Menasha City Directory

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By the 1920s, George Rippl  and Exley had gone their separate ways; Rippl opened his own meat market at 500 Broad Street and Exley's Market moved to 234 Main Street.  He also moved residences to 309 Broad Street. His home is shown below in the pictured post card.  Exley retired from the meat business for good in 1930 and lived until 1937, devoting his leisure time to a farm he owned on Appleton Road. 

Happy Weekend!

Though it is hard to read in the photo, the caption identifies this group as being from the Walter Brothers Brewing Company, obviously enjoying an outing on a sunny day.  The formality of their dress suggests a Sunday, perhaps, but considering the standards of the time, where people wouldn't normally even go outside without a hat, it could be any day. 

Whatever the case, I hope you have an nice (and informal) weekend!

Dress Up Day

 

 

From the Post-Crescent archives, 43 years ago today, October 4, 1969