Menasha Wooden Ware

This 1947 aerial view shows the Menasha Wooden Ware in the center of the picture. The street at the bottom is Main Street.  The bridge at left is the Mill Street bridge and you can see a bit of the old library at the intersection of Mill and Water Streets at the lower left hand corner.  Right across the street from that is the Hotel Menasha.  Notice the railroad siding outside the plant, boxcars at the ready to be filled with butter tubs and other wooden products. 

Photograph courtesy of Menasha Public Library.

Banta Offices Open House

November 3, 1939 Oshkosh Northwestern

According to The George Banta Company Story, great joy was felt by workers when these offices were completed in 1939.  Besides the addition of a professional conference room and a library, quickly forgotten was the summer long ordeal of noise, dust ,and insects, barely contained by the simple canvas curtain separating the construction area from the day-to-day office activities set up temporarily on the second floor of the area known as Building no. 2. 

New Technology for Learning

October 6, 1973 Twin City News-Record

If the video tape player Menasha schools bought in the early '70s is anything like I remember, it's akin to the bulky cumbersome reel to reel variety we used in my speech class at UW-Oshkosh in 1976 (see above). It was big and heavy and traveled from class to class on an AV cart...remember those?  

Still, kudos to the Menasha School District for jumping on the technology track back then.  

Contrast this with the tablet computers that today's elementary students are being issued (and individually, I might add) and one can easily say it's an even more marvelous, wondrous world our kids are learning in today. 

But then, we all thought our transistor radios were the end all and be all at one time too! 

Beer Party

With the celebrations of welcoming 2013 still ringing in our ears, here's to a nice weekend, the first of many this year.  Once again, Happy New Year to you all! 

Hedberg Drug Store

from the 1945 Neenah-Menasha Telephone Directory

July 19, 1960 Oshkosh Northwestern

Originally known as the Stilp and Hedberg Drug Store, many of us remember this address in later years as the Lang Pharmacy.  In the photo above, if you squint just right, you can see the Hedberg sign right above that last car parked diagonally on Main Street. 

Menasha Pool Revisited

In the middle of this cold winter, we can always long for warmer days.  In keeping with that, let's take another look at the old Menasha pool.  One of the distinct features of the pool was pictured here- the greenish-tinted bleacher deck atop the locker rooms.  Reportedly, there was seating for up to 700 spectators. 

Happy New Year!

 

December 31, 1965 NM Northwestern

 

We, at the blog, go back in time to wish you a happy 1966 along with many other familiar merchants of the Fox Valley. 

 

Happy New Year, and may 2013 be your best year ever!