Robert Mullen
Catalog Number: 2006.003.04
This Christmas box from Doerflinger’s will bring back holiday memories for some.
The red and silver gift box could have held a pair of gloves, a man’s tie, or a woman’s scarf — a present for that special person in your life.
Mention the name Doerflinger’s among a group of older La Crosse residents, and you will open a floodgate of nostalgia.
These memories come from a deep sense of kinship the people of the city had for their long-established, homegrown department store, Doerflinger’s.
You will probably hear memories of children gazing at the elaborate Christmas displays in the store’s windows. Or eating lunch at the Halfway Tea Room on the balcony. Or the fascination with the ancient pneumatic tubes used by the clerks to retrieve your change when you checked out.
Or pondering the amazing selection at the candy counter on the first floor. Or riding the elevator operated by Dave, an employee hired just to deliver you to the third floor where you could hear the squeaky floorboards as you walked across the furniture department.
Many more Doerflinger memories return when walking through the store of the building’s current tenant, the Duluth Trading Co.
Doerflinger’s Department Store was started in 1881 by William Doerflinger and E. Bosshard in a small shop near Cameron Park. Because of its location, the shop was nicknamed The Park Store.
Doerflinger, who was born in 1857 on a farm near the La Crosse bluffs, purchased Bosshard’s share in the store 10 years later. After several location changes and a huge fire in 1903, the building at Fourth and Main streets in downtown La Crosse was constructed, becoming the anchor store for the business district through much of the 20th century.
William Doerflinger died in 1924, and a few years later his daughter Viola Doerflinger Fellows became president of the store. Viola’s son Samuel Fellows took over the management in 1954, and the family-run business prospered into the 1970s.
Unfortunately, debt from opening branch stores in Valley View Mall and other local shopping centers was too heavy for the company to handle.
Doerflinger’s, among the oldest family-operated department stores in the country, closed its downtown store in 1984, shortly after closing its branch stores.
This Doerflinger gift box, probably from the 1960s or 1970s, is a part of the La Crosse County Historical Society’s artifact collection.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 22, 2018.
This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.
