Posted 9 a.m. Thursday, March 27, 2025
Retired Professor Les Crocker left a substantial impact on UWL, La Crosse history
By Brad Quarberg, Distinguished University Relations Specialist Emeritus
If you have looked at historical images or information about UWL or La Crosse, you have probably seen Les Crocker's work.
The longtime UWL professor and La Crosse architectural historian died in his La Crescent, Minnesota, home Feb. 16, 2025. He was 82.
“The impact of his work is immeasurable,” says Jenny DeRocher, ’18, a librarian in the La Crosse Public Library Archives & Local History Department. “We know so much more about La Crosse's history because of his research. And so many buildings were documented before they were bulldozed because of his photographs.”
DeRocher is one of the many people — from current students and former students to fellow professors and professional historians — who remember Crocker for his lasting impact on La Crosse history.
Born in Tennessee, Crocker didn’t grow up in the Coulee Region, but you wouldn’t have known it with his vast understanding of La Crosse history and his love for the area.
“The South is no longer my home, it’s where I was born,” he shared in a June 22, 2024, recording recounting his career that is now part of the UWL Oral History Program. “But La Crosse is my emotional, intellectual, cultural home. I’m drinking beer; you know that’s part of it.”
Crocker attended Treadwell High School in Memphis, Tennessee, where he discovered a passion for literature and art. He took that passion to Memphis State, earning a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1964. He then went to Columbia University for a master's in art history in 1966, eventually earning a doctorate in the same field in 1970.
Crocker arrived at UWL’s Art Department in September 1969. He taught, chaired the department and achieved many other academic and professional endeavors spanning 32 years, until his retirement in 2001. Then he focused even more on La Crosse history. Among many printed articles, video and audio recordings, his books included:
- “Forms and Spaces: Sculpture in La Crosse, Wisconsin,” (1992) co-authored with Stephanie Hammes
- “Places and Spaces: A Century of Public Buildings, Bridges and Parks in La Crosse, Wisconsin,” (2012)
- “We've Hung the Lantern: A Visual History of the First 50 years of UW-La Crosse,” (2013)
- “La Crosse Buildings through Time: A Companion Guide to Buildings through Time Presentations,” (2015)
- “Immigrants All: Domestic Architecture in La Crosse, 1842-1879” (forthcoming in 2025)
Colleagues say Crocker went the extra mile to preserve history. Propelled by the demolition of the old U.S. Post Office downtown in 1977, he and others formed the Preservation Alliance of La Crosse. Eventually, his preservation efforts led him to the county’s landfill to retrieve the city’s tax records when they were being tossed.
“He and Ed Hill (retired UWL archivist and Murphy Library’s Area Research Center founder) went and saved the city's tax records from the landfill,” recalls DeRocher. “They literally followed the truck to the dump, watched people unload the truck, and then loaded their own truck with the tax records. We now have these in our collections at the La Crosse Public Library Archives and have completed house histories for hundreds of patrons. We all know more about our city and feel more connected to it because of Les.”
Crocker shared a similar story of retrieving historical documents for History Professor Ariel Beaujot’s award-winning “Hear, Here” project that records history from local residents.
Crocker was trying to save designs and drawings from the Odin J. Oyen firm, a thriving Main Street business from the late-1880s until the Great Depression. The firm created original watercolors as proposed interior designs for courthouses, churches, fraternal organizations and private residences across the Upper Midwest. He and a student — Joan M. Rausch, a former nurse — were inquiring about historical materials stored in the downtown Oyen building with Leighton Oyen, Odin’s son. The materials on the third floor were historical treasures.
“Designs, drawings, presentation pieces, all sorts of visual material were mixed together,” Crocker explained in the oral history recording. “Some of it was covered with dust that looked to be 30 or 40 years old. Other piles had been looked at more recently. But as Joan and I went through them and blew the dust off and looked at the images, it was obvious that these were very important remains of the Oyen Company.
“Leighton agreed to donate the material to the university, and Joan and I really grabbed the material and ran,” Crocker continued. “We hauled it downstairs and put it in our cars. The painting we took off the stretcher and rolled it up and I carried it over to the university on top of my little Ford Mustang.”
Beaujot says Crocker’s passion for teaching and sharing his love of history continued in his retirement. She saw it when he jumped at an opportunity to help a bachelor’s degree student during the pandemic.
“Les spent the same careful time with my student as he did with me,” Beaujot recalls. “This is how I know he must have been an influential teacher, paying much attention to those who were below him in academia, and with students alike, making sure that the education at UWL was as good as it could possibly be by influencing the students and their teachers.”
Beaujot says he was fascinated with the area’s architecture.
“He thought of La Crosse as a special place that deserved a deep dive into its history, which he spent all of his retirement doing, and much of his career,” she explains.
History Professor James Longhurst says the retired Crocker became an immediate historical colleague and friend when he arrived on campus in 2008. He turned to Crocker for local zoning and planning information of the past.
“While recounting a story about the architectural history of a building or a neighborhood on a walking tour or presentation, I recall that he would often finish the story by noting what further research would need to be done on a particular building or style or construction method,” Longhurst says. “It’s like the story of La Crosse neighborhoods was never done in his mind; there was always something more to chase into the archives.”
Crocker went out of his way to assist friends and colleagues looking for historical information. Teri Holford, department chair for the Library Department at Murphy Library, met him when she started working at Murphy as a librarian archivist in Special Collections in 2009. When she purchased an old La Crosse North Side house a few years later, she asked if he'd stop by to look at the 1893 home.
“He did, and I learned a few interesting things that only he could have provided from his vast experience of studying architecture,” Holford explains. “I called it ‘Crockering’ a house, and I'm honored to have had my house ‘Crockered.’ He was an exceptional person, and his humanity and expertise will be missed.”
Laura Godden, ’07, an assistant professor and archivist in the Murphy Library Special Collections/Area Research Center, was always impressed with Crocker's ability to compile, analyze and transform raw archival sources into understandable new knowledge and perspectives.
“Through his work, he brought the library's historical materials to larger audiences and increased their impact and reach,” Godden explains. “Moreover, in his work, he always diligently conveyed to others the importance of Murphy Library's archives and how his research would not be possible without it.”
Godden says Crocker credited community members who donated materials and encouraged others to share items.
“I lost count of how many materials we took in for Murphy Library over the years because of his advocacy,” she says. It’s one of the reasons why he received the Eugene W. Murphy Library Special Recognition Award in 2018.
Crocker’s lifetime of work helped transform local attitudes about historic preservation, Godden notes. From the early ’70s when he first started advocating for preservation to shortly before his death, he worked to promote historic preservation.
“Looking back on things now, even though Les came to La Crosse as an outsider from Tennessee, his research and educational efforts, spanning over 50 years, opened the community's eyes to the fact that it has a history that is worth saving and preserving,” Godden says.
Crocker is survived by his wife, Ruth; his nephew, Charles Wayne Gholson Jr. and Wayne's wife, Shelle (Hassenforder) Gholson; and his great-nephew, Charles Wayne Gholson III. Memorials may go to the La Crosse Public Library (c/o Scott Brower. Add "Archives Gift Fund" in the check memo); or to Kid's Owl Art, International Owl Center, P.O. Box 536, Houston, Minn. 55943 Attn: Karla.
Explore Crocker's work
Crocker leads walking tours of campus, Goosetown and the surrounding neighborhood
What would La Crosse history be without the city’s smells? Crocker provided three blogs about how poop influenced La Crosse's built environment
In his own words: The History of the historic Oyen collection
Crocker shares how buildings become living and breathing entities that survive generations of community members, connecting present-day people to those from 130 years ago
- Lost and (sometimes) found: La Crosse homes
- Lost and (sometimes) found: La Crosse commercial buildings
Re-take one of Crocker’s “La Crosse Buildings Through Time” presentations
Anita Doering, retired La Crosse Public Library Archives Manager, wrote this blog tribute to Crocker