North Fond du Lac Historical Society

Life in NFDL in the 1950’s

This past weekend, I was fortunate to sit down with 3 gentlemen that grew up in the Village of NFDL in the 50’s. They had fond memories of being raised here and they had a hard time containing their enthusiasm while telling these tales. Bob Bosin, and John and Hod Mc Cadden shared these stories and here they are…..

Movie Nights

Monday and Wednesday nights were movie nights in the Village. Movies were shown downtown on the south side of Ralph’s Avenue Bar, which was located on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Harrison Street(currently the ‘Nick at Nite’ tavern, the empty lot next to Ralph’s is the current location of Baker’s Pride Bakery and formerly the Village Beverage Mart). Local businessmen would sponsor these movies and their businesses would be advertised on the screen prior to the main feature. The kids enjoyed the short cartoon shown prior to the movie which always featured a hero. The hero would be thrown into a dangerous situation that would end in a cliffhanger and the frustrating, “Tune in next time, to see if our hero can triumph!!” A gentleman in a large station wagon came into town that sold candy and popcorn. The popcorn was a popular item because it contained a ticket in selected boxes, which entitled you to a free box! Families would come and sit down on blankets and visit with everyone.

North and South Ender Battle

Another fun event was mentioned by our last VP of the NFDL Historical Society, Bud Erdman, in his booklet about growing up in the Village. The fall battle between the North and the South Enders. The dividing line was Harrison Street and this battle was a fond memory for a couple generations. The annual event took place in the fall, when there was an abundance of garden veggies to hurl at your opponents. The battle included throwing tomatoes at each other from across the street. The red, mushy kind were great for the battle, but I was told that green ones were occasionally used. The green ones inflicted a little pain since they weren’t ripe, but usually the meaner kids resorted to using them.

The Caboose Project

The idea for the North Fond du Lac Historical Society was based on the idea to refurbish the caboose that sat along Highway 41 since 1989. The weather really faded the paint and trees and brush had grown a long the fence line, obscuring the view of the caboose. In order to raise money needed for this project, we decided to create the NFDL Historical Society and become a non-profit organization.

Once we were ‘officially’ a non-profit organization, we discussed the project and in the fall of 2006, we hit the ground running. We sent out many donation request letters and we received some press to help make our project known to the community. We thought that Yellowstone Trail Park was the ideal place for the caboose since the park is situated at the ‘front door’ of our community.

By May of 2007, enough donations had been collected to get the project under way. The date of May 15th was selected to move the caboose. It took a 120 ton crane and flatbed truck to move it to the Canadian National Yards for it’s new ‘free’ paint job! While the caboose was being worked on, Eilertson Electric installed the cement pad that the caboose would eventually sit on. L & H Gyr supplied some materials and Carew Concrete gave us a great deal on the cement.

I was able to check on the progress at the rail yard shops, which was quite an undertaking. All the paint was sanded off and a nice shiny red color was applied and it looked fantastic! In less than 2 months, the caboose was ready to be moved to the new location. On July 12th, we scheduled the move and it was a perfect day. The move went well and there were many people that came to the park to see it set onto the new pad.

We scheduled our dedication for August 4th, 2007. We had another great day and we had about 40 people attend, and we even had a photographer from the paper show up!

The North Fond du Lac Historical Society is very proud of our first project. We hope to continue working on the caboose, which still needs the interior completely re-done. We have raised over $11,000 in donations, but our costs have been high and we hope to raise more money to complete the project.