Zoo and other Nostalgia

"Nothing more important now than reveling in shifting panoramas, exploring scenes remembered vaguely from the past, surcharging minds and spirits with color and warmth against the coming white and cold.  There were many places to go, each one different, places that somehow had poetry of their own and, while part of the changing scene, stood out and said: 'Enjoy me while you can.'"
            – Sigurd Olson, from "Falling Leaf"


Looking back over this very informal attempt at an A-Z history of La Crosse, it seems fitting to dampen the last entry with a small dose of nostalgia.  La Crosse is a relatively old city for the upper midwest – located along the banks of the Mississippi – it began as an outpost, in essence, for the fur trade; and where natural resources and profit merge comes more trade, people, and means of transportation.  Lumber took over for the fur trade, and for lumber, beer brewing, and then everything else. This is to point out the obvious – that La Crosse has plenty of history, which leads to generations worth of memory. These memories, whether we choose it or not, in the case of La Crosse, have been formed by the premise of the Mississippi River, its backwaters, its sources of sustenance, and its bluffland protectors.  Where memory meets nature and appreciation forms is what Sigurd Olson refers to above.  Colors and seasons, tree groves and forest undergrowth, farms and animals... human experience in nature results in nostalgia just as often any regret or bad memory.

A simple case like the Myrick Park Zoo, a dedication in 1929 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is a good example of the heart of La Crosse nature and nostalgia.  It started as far back as 1837 when the city of La Crosse paid Fanny Strasburger $1,600 for 20 acres of land known for its "Turtle Mounds....in 1903, Lake Park was renamed Myrick Park, after the first La Crosse settler Nathan Myrick.  A couple of years later, 1906, the music pavilion was erected at a cost of $800, plus $500 for electricity and sprinklers (the facility was demolished in 1974)."  Monkey Island came along with the dedication in 1929 and wading pool installed in 1945.  Over the next 50 years a menagerie of animals were added including bear den, deer, bobcats, prairie dogs and to never forget the eventual showstopper, the wandering peacocks.

Monkey Island, a city-wide favorite

"In 1990, an animal inventory was comprised naming several interesting inhabitants at the zoo.  Among the animals were badgers, red fox, arctic fox, ferrets, tarantula, shrew, pheasant guinea pigs, chinchillas, and turkeys."  To have walked in among the wide-ranging outdoor zoo as a child, even then, was an unusual but very memorable experience.  Beginning with the outdoor concession, always including a blue slushy, and on past the boats circling over a shallow pool and then to the goose pond, was a walk through a time of years past.  Hours might be spent at the rough-bottomed concrete wading pool; or hunched over the fence of the 'bear pit' to see, if even briefly, the poor hot bear. These seemed to be a given part of a La Crosse childhood.  Time leaped forward and our modern mode of caring for animals changed, leaving behind an archaic zoo structure with apparently not enough help to match the needs of the zoo inhabitants.

In 2009 a new Eco Park was built in its stead with much fanfare but not enough funding to bring back the full support of the public.  For the academic, the Eco Center is a boon: a lot of potential data and rooms to talk about it.  Its potential as a learning facility is still not yet tapped, which is unfortunate because of the building's beauty, its ecological foresight, and its location.  Small groups of La Crossites have created groups to rejuvenate certain parts of the old zoo – maybe bring back some animals or concessions to supplement the Kids Coulee edition above.  What gets lost in the minor debate over an Eco Center or a newfound zoo is that a few hundred feet away from either is the La Crosse River Marsh where, when you are lucky, you walk through its green altars of cotton woods and marsh oak and experience the most abundantly free natural resource in the city, no cages, no center, no need for anything but a little time and two feet.