Dark La Crosse Stories

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 20th 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 Crosse Stories.  

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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. 

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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.

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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."  

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