an appointment., I thanked them for their time, headed out the door, and steered the rental car back south onto early rush hour traffic on Highway 61.
Thus, I drove out of Winona without learning perhaps the most interesting thing about the place: that the aforementioned Saint Maryâs University, which Gardner had made a point of telling me was âjust up the roadâ from the bowling alley, was haunted by the ghost of a murderous priest who, having shot one of his brethren of the cloth on campus, had been floating through one of its dormitories for the past forty years. This news came to me during a late night beer joint conversation in La Crosse and I later âconfirmedâ it on a Web site called Ghosts of the Prairie. But, alas, though the priest apparently liked guns, he was not a beer man so far as I could learn, so I didnât go back to check it out.
By 4:30 P.M. , spying no more beer oddities along my route, I had quit Minnesota for Wisconsin. By 6:00 P.M. , after a bit of a look around, Iâd settled into a Marriott Courtyard on the river in La Crosse, partly because it had a river view and partly because it was close to Old La Crosse, thus I could walk in search of the Perfect Beer Joint. Walking was certainly the preferable mode of transportation if I wanted to cover more than one or two beer joints in a night and sample beer at each.
I liked the looks of La Crosse, which an entrance sign told me was the pride of âWisconsinâs west coastâ and a tourist brochure Iâd picked up at a visitors center said was home to about 52,000 people. The town seemed to have its share of outskirts sprawl and its isolated pockets of neglect but its downtown and old town were quaint and impressive. French fur traders were the first Europeans to arrive; in the late 1700s they named it La Crosse after watching some Winnebago Indians play a stick-and-ball game that reminded them of a game by that name that theyâd played back in France. Today, the game, spelled lacrosse, is played by an estimated 250,000 kids and college students in the U.S., though in somewhat more genteel form than the original Native American version. Original lacrosse could be a rowdy and even bloody and violent game that some tribes used to settle scores in lieu of war.
In its heyday, La Crosse had also been a timber town and a bustling port, handling as many as 300 steamboats a month. It sits not just on the Mississippi but also at the Mississippiâs confluence with the Black and La Crosse rivers. A twenty-five-foot-high, twenty-five-ton statue of Longfellowâs mythic Indian, Hiawatha, arms folded, peace pipe at repose, has marked this spot for more than forty years. I found it bizarrely charming but I guess Iâm fond of kitsch. Depending on your politics and sensibilities, it is either an impressive tribute to Native American culture, or a caricature thereof (and thus presently a matter of some local controversy). But the spot is considered unique to Native Americans for another reason: tribal lore has it that any place that sits on three rivers will forever be immune from tornadoes. (And for as long as records have been kept, La Crosse hasnât had one.)
Mark Twain called La Crosse a âchoice townâ and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was also a choice brewing town, supporting more breweries than any other Wisconsin town save Milwaukee, which was on its way to becoming the beer capital of America (a title which it some time ago surrendered). Today, many La Crosse residents refer to it as âGodâs Country,â and not necessarily because it has sixty churches, one third of them Lutheran. Around sunset, at the top of Grandad Bluff, reachable by a winding road 500 feet above the city, La Crosse preened for me, in colors I could scarcely describe, like a postcard in otherworldly light.
It was also edifying (strictly as a beer scribe) to learn that La Crosse
Thus, I drove out of Winona without learning perhaps the most interesting thing about the place: that the aforementioned Saint Maryâs University, which Gardner had made a point of telling me was âjust up the roadâ from the bowling alley, was haunted by the ghost of a murderous priest who, having shot one of his brethren of the cloth on campus, had been floating through one of its dormitories for the past forty years. This news came to me during a late night beer joint conversation in La Crosse and I later âconfirmedâ it on a Web site called Ghosts of the Prairie. But, alas, though the priest apparently liked guns, he was not a beer man so far as I could learn, so I didnât go back to check it out.
By 4:30 P.M. , spying no more beer oddities along my route, I had quit Minnesota for Wisconsin. By 6:00 P.M. , after a bit of a look around, Iâd settled into a Marriott Courtyard on the river in La Crosse, partly because it had a river view and partly because it was close to Old La Crosse, thus I could walk in search of the Perfect Beer Joint. Walking was certainly the preferable mode of transportation if I wanted to cover more than one or two beer joints in a night and sample beer at each.
I liked the looks of La Crosse, which an entrance sign told me was the pride of âWisconsinâs west coastâ and a tourist brochure Iâd picked up at a visitors center said was home to about 52,000 people. The town seemed to have its share of outskirts sprawl and its isolated pockets of neglect but its downtown and old town were quaint and impressive. French fur traders were the first Europeans to arrive; in the late 1700s they named it La Crosse after watching some Winnebago Indians play a stick-and-ball game that reminded them of a game by that name that theyâd played back in France. Today, the game, spelled lacrosse, is played by an estimated 250,000 kids and college students in the U.S., though in somewhat more genteel form than the original Native American version. Original lacrosse could be a rowdy and even bloody and violent game that some tribes used to settle scores in lieu of war.
In its heyday, La Crosse had also been a timber town and a bustling port, handling as many as 300 steamboats a month. It sits not just on the Mississippi but also at the Mississippiâs confluence with the Black and La Crosse rivers. A twenty-five-foot-high, twenty-five-ton statue of Longfellowâs mythic Indian, Hiawatha, arms folded, peace pipe at repose, has marked this spot for more than forty years. I found it bizarrely charming but I guess Iâm fond of kitsch. Depending on your politics and sensibilities, it is either an impressive tribute to Native American culture, or a caricature thereof (and thus presently a matter of some local controversy). But the spot is considered unique to Native Americans for another reason: tribal lore has it that any place that sits on three rivers will forever be immune from tornadoes. (And for as long as records have been kept, La Crosse hasnât had one.)
Mark Twain called La Crosse a âchoice townâ and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was also a choice brewing town, supporting more breweries than any other Wisconsin town save Milwaukee, which was on its way to becoming the beer capital of America (a title which it some time ago surrendered). Today, many La Crosse residents refer to it as âGodâs Country,â and not necessarily because it has sixty churches, one third of them Lutheran. Around sunset, at the top of Grandad Bluff, reachable by a winding road 500 feet above the city, La Crosse preened for me, in colors I could scarcely describe, like a postcard in otherworldly light.
It was also edifying (strictly as a beer scribe) to learn that La Crosse
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