Just a few miles south of La Crescent is the village of Hokah.
In 1875 it had almost 2000 inhabitants and several large industries. The Root River Valley railroad went through the lower town and there was shipping via the Root River.
The Town Hall was built in 1939 as a Works Progress Administration project. The concrete construction is typical of the era as is the simplified blocky decoration. The central section recalls a Greek or Roman temple front, but everything is created with right angles and no curves.
Very few of these concrete buildings remain across the country so this is an important local example of the type.
The town of Hokah was founded by Edward Thompson in 1851 who was looking for a good site for a flour mill. He eventually sawed lumber on the upper level and ground corn on the lower level of his mill. He had two dams washed away and a third dam was put up in 1858 by his brother Clark Thompson, built with a stone core and dirt surface. Eventually there were four flour mills in Hokah, powered by the waters of Thompson creek.
Originally the Hokah Bank, now a cafe, this little building is not stone but is an early example of concrete block. The cornice detail is also concrete. This concrete block is different in texture and surface from the commonly seen concrete block in this area. Perhaps a small company that went out of business and it’s forms were never reused.
Lake Como became a very popular spot for La Crosse families for weekends or longer vacations. It was within easy reach by train and businessmen could commute to La Crosse while their families enjoyed the tree shaded lake. Private cabins were built as well as at least one cabin and boat rental operation called Idlewild, owned by Prosper Steves, who was mentioned in my book Places and Spaces.
These two buildings were built in 1868 and tell very different stories. Both have space on the second floor as living space for the owners. The frame building on the left is typical of houses and simple buildings of all types at the time. They were cheap to build but also burned easily. Many of the gaps in Hokah’s downtown are the result of fires that destroyed frame buildings like this one. Sometime later, probably in the early 1880′s the front of this store was rebuilt using cast-iron columns and a cast iron beam above the large windows. The brick building to the right shows the limitations of the
brick arch. Cast iron allowed much larger windows for displaying goods, or just for bringing more light into the interior. Both buildings were razed in 1966.
Regular readers of this site will recognize this type of house, a flipped L plan, 1 1/2 stories high with a porch in the angle of the two units, probably built in the late 1870′s. Shortly after construction part of the porch was enclosed to make a foyer to keep out the cold winter winds. Such houses were built all over this area.
We can’t see the left side so this could be a cruciform plan or a three gable plan. Probably built in the late 1880′s by Dr George Reay, this house is also similar to many others in the area. A little decoration in the gable and some spindlework on the front porch enlivens the simple forms. Many of these houses were built from plans that were advertised all over the country.
Sears Roebuck even provided materials for building houses.
During the night of August 14, 1909 there was a very heavy localized downpour, one farmer reported over six inches of rain in a bucket sitting outside. Prosper Steves reported that the lake rose six and a half feet during the rain and within an hour and a half of the flood the lake had dropped over 18 feet. Lake Como was gone.
Three bridges were washed out, several hundred feet of the railroad bed in the lower town was gone and deep ravines cut by the raging water. At the time there was comment about the amount of silt that had washed into the lake and could be seen in bands of color on the former walls of the lake.
The dam was rebuilt in 1922 but it was doomed from the start. Many farmers of the time plowed up and down the hillsides rather than parallel to the contours of the land. Trees had been removed and the pasture land was often over grazed. Rain brought the soil down the steep hills and the years of the Dust Bowl contributed to the soil erosion. By 1935 the lake had become a mud flat.
Hokah was suffering even before the loss of Lake Como. The railroad construction and repair shops that had once employed 500 men in Hokah were moved to La Crosse after the construction of the railroad bridge over the Mississippi in 1876. The flour mills were bought out or driven out of business by the Cargill Grain Company founded in La Crosse and later moved to St Paul. Milling was a business where scale mattered; large mills could process grain more cheaply than small ones.
In spite of the loss of it’s two major industries, milling and railroad repair, there was some gradual growth. This two story brick commercial building with excellent stone window heads was built in 1883 and still remains although a new awning covers the ground level.
With the loss of it’s industries Hokah shrunk in size and became a local center serving the farmers of the area. Once automobiles were available Hokah businesses could not compete with La Crosse, it was just too close to the larger city.
Thanks to Barb Bissen, Librarian at Hokah Public Library and author of Greetings From Hokah Minnesota which was my source for this information.
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