Special Collections & Area Research Center, Murphy Library, UW-La Crosse

Murphy Library Resource Center
1631 Pine St.
La Crosse, WI 54601
Phone: 608-785-8511
Email: specoll[at]uwlax.edu
http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/departments/archome.html

The Area Research Center in La Crosse is also the Special Collections department in Murphy Library, the main research facility on the UW-La Crosse campus. It serves and documents five Wisconsin counties; Jackson, La Crosse, Monroe, Trempealeau, and Vernon. Along with special collections and the ARC, it houses the rare book and Wisconsiana collections. The Wisconsiana materials consist of over 5000 works of non-fiction dealing with state and local topics, including histories of Wisconsin towns, villages and communities. There are also oral history collections, maps, photographs and university archives.

The Oral History program was started in 1968 under the direction of Howard Fredericks, UW-La Crosse professor and oral historian. Since then, the collection has grown to include over 3000 hours of recorded histories, focusing on the community and the history of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. The significance of these recordings goes beyond the five counties served, and garners national interest especially in the areas of the Hmong refugee experience, European ethnic groups, turn of the century small city manners and daily life, Midwestern rural life and culture, and women’s experience.

The photographic collections total approximately 150,000 images. A major portion of the photograph collection is historic photos of La Crosse and the surrounding area. Of these, approximately 50,000 are of inland river steamboats and river scenes, making it one of the nation's largest collections for this subject. Just recently, in 2007-2008, this collection of steamboat photographs has been digitized by the Digital Collection Center of the UW Madison campus. The digitized photographs are available at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/LaCrosseSteamboat/.


This is the Admiral sidewheel paddle excursion boat, built in 1940 in St. Louis, where this photo was taken. Undated.


Photo of a lumber raft on the Mississippi River near La Crosse, WI, includes the towboat “Kit Carson” and the bow boat “Scotia”. This photo was taken in the 1870’s. Negative number 339


Overhead view of Levee Park in La Crosse, WI about 1913 with the steamboat “David Tipton” in the center. Negative number 389

Images courtesy of Special Collections & Area Research Center, Murphy Library, UW-La Crosse.

Entry compiled by Rachel Pieper