Almost Untouched: A Survivor from the Past
(written by Dr. Les Crocker, UWL Emeritus Professor of Art History)
The Greek Revival style house now sits behind the Hixon House at 426 6th Street North, La Crosse. Photo by the author, Les Crocker, 2010
This little Greek Revival house at 422 N. 8th Street has a wonderful story. By all rights it should have been torn down years ago, but it survives and will continue to live on as the best remaining example of an early La Crosse house. It is considered the best because it is relatively unchanged from about 1858, with no additions or significant alterations.
June 19, 1992, La Crosse Tribune photograph
Doug Connell, a local historian and building researcher, wrote me this story. Summer isn’t a good time to look at buildings, the trees get in the way but he saw clearly.
“I ‘discovered’ the house in August 1990 while on a bicycle ride. As I pedaled along on North Eighth Street I looked back at the garage (then located at the rear of 422 N. Eighth Street) and noticed the Greek Revival door surround and the cornice returns on the structure. I said to myself then, “That has to be an old Greek Revival house . . . nobody would build a garage in that style.” My suspicions were confirmed a month or two later when I was bicycling by the site again and noticed that the door to the garage was open — nobody was around so I trespassed and entered the garage to discover four Greek Revival style windows (six panes in each sash) on the lower floor and two on the second floor — all covered over by the garage’s siding. Even more remarkable, most of the glass was still in the windows.”
A November 8, 1996, La Crosse Tribune article spells out its fate
As it stood at 422 8th St. North in 1997 preparing to be moved to its new site beind the Hixon House. Courtesy of Murphy Library, UW-L, Special Collections
As far as I know no items were ever found inside the walls or below the floor boards of the garage/house . . . nor any writing on boards. The most interesting thing I remember from working on the house (in 1998 after it was moved to its current site on North Sixth Street) was that the floor boards on the second floor were of different widths — including one that is over a foot wide.
As mentioned in the Tribune articles regarding the house [on file at the La Crosse Public Library Archives], my hunch is that the house was originally on the front of the lot at 422 N. Eighth Street (built in 1858 for a farmer named Moses Clark) and then moved to the back of the lot for use as a barn or garage in 1903 when a newer house (since razed) was built on the front of the lot. Either that or the house was moved from an unknown site in the downtown area for use as a barn/garage.”
--from Doug Connell in an email to Les Crocker, February 6, 2012
November 7, 1998, La Crosse Tribune
The house was moved and restored by PAL, the Preservation Alliance of La Crosse, in 1998. You can find more out about that group by visiting their website. The Greek Revival style structure now sits behind the Hixon House at 426 North 6th Street.