Dark La Crosse Stories

The life and times of Walter Goetzinger, one of the most extraordinary musicians in La Crosse history, continues with a double homicide in Milwaukee involving his son and family friends from La Crosse.

The life and times of Walter Goetzinger, one of the most extraordinary musicians in La Crosse history, including a theater fire, a messy divorce, and his role in the erection of the Rivoli Theatre. 

A young farmer kills three brothers near Austin, Minnesota and goes on the run for 12 days with George Brooks' bloodhounds and a La Crosse Tribune reporter hot on his trail.  

What happens when an unsavory business opens in a historic home in the heart of an upper-class residential district?

In 1883, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse opened the St. Mary's Indian School, a boarding school that was on the reservation of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians with the mission to convert Ojibwe children to Catholicism, a history the FSPA now must reconcile with the survivors and descendants of St. Mary's.

At the turn of the 20 th century, disgraced Reverend Martin Hanson left a North La Crosse congregation, his family, and the family pet wondering what happened to the man they thought they knew.  

In October 1927, the La Crosse County Coroner drove to Madison with a macabre cargo - a human stomach, destined for the state toxicologist’s office, exhumed from Oak Grove Cemetery just days after its burial.

An evening performance of Howe's Great London Circus descended into chaos as a raging summer storm moved through La Crosse in 1875.

A hot summer night in 1935 that began with celebrating at the Crystal Room in the Hotel Stoddard ended in tragedy on the Old Wagon Bridge spanning the Mississippi River.

In December 1907,  in the Olmsted County Courthouse in Rochester, a beautiful, young and popular socialite woman was being held facing six counts of forgery and three counts of obtaining money under false pretenses.  Her plea? Not guilty.  Decide for yourself whether Aimee Sickle Lloyd is guilty or not, and learn more about what happened to female prisoners in Wisconsin in this episode of Dark La...

What happens when archival records leave out crucial histories of those who persecuted by the writers of history?  In this episode of Dark La Crosse Stories, listen to the account of the persecution and forced movement of Indigenous people -- the Ho-Chunk peoples -- as told by a citizen of the Ho-Chunk nation.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A notorious criminal ends up in the La Crosse County jail in 1913 after a drunken night out. The man was known for kidnapping high profile individuals and holding them for ransom, long before kidnapping was a common crime. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did the end of World War II usher in a crime wave in the United States? In La Crosse County, men and women defended their property and livelihoods against "homegrown Hitlers" in the latest installment of the Dark La Crosse series.  What post-war societal problems contributed to the turn to crime? Find out in episode 55, "Homefront Hero."   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When one of Minnesota's oldest weekly papers takes a shift towards the sensational, a community becomes divided, with reputations at stake. Some lives are changed forever.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The echoes of what sounded like a bombardment along the Mississippi River south of La Crosse in the fall of 1902 was a desperate attempt to retrieve the bodies of a well-known La Crosse business owner and his grandson. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A second chance at love seemed promising for Mrs. Hope McEldowney of West Salem, a widow of 44 years of age in 1913. McEldowney met a clairvoyant on one of her jaunts to Chicago who operated a bookstore on upscale Michigan Avenue with occult rooms in the back. She became a regular client, and the two became more than just friends. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A hardworking brother, born the 11th son of a farming family, noted for his good character and straightforward life by family and neighbors alike, a man whose final act appeared to be reading the Bible in the kitchen by the fire. Or a desperate, demented man, prone to drinking and violent acts, his sudden fits of fury made even more menacing by the fact that he couldn’t speak above a whisper. See...

A lot of rumors swirled around the "celebrated recluse" of La Crosse, Mary Ann Parker — but was there any truth that she murdered her husband? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mary Ann Parker was a strange woman who had been holed up in her house ever since her husband died. Were the rumors true about her? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may visit this now family-friendly block to get ice cream and sweets, but it has a sordid history in La Crosse. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the biggest shadows to loom in the La Crosse Police Department. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"The boss bigamist of the United States belongs to La Crosse." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The issues of drugs and addiction are nothing new to La Crosse. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's the scariest La Crosse ghost story you've ever heard? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Halt" would be the last word officer Perry Gates ever said. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.