A soggy day in Cuba City

Rainy weather dampening your spirits? Here's a reminder that things could be worse.

Cuba City's Main Street, facing north, ca. 1915. The first building on the left is Gile Real Estate & Insurance today. The first building on the right is Hindu's Corner Bar.

Below are reminiscences of the rainy days of yesteryear, from Cuba City's centennial history:

"On the Main Street intersections, plank crosswalks helped pedestrians, to a certain extent, in crossing the streets. After much rain, the planks sank into the mud and boots and overshoes were a must for the pedestrian."

"In the spring, Main Street, in front of the Post office and north through the intersection, was bottomless and wagons were apt to sink to their axles in rich sticky mud and horses had a hard time. Spreading gravel or cinders was useless and village officials employed teamsters who hauled in load after load of boulders from the mine piles and dumped them in the mudhole. This repaired the street for that year, but the next spring when the frost went out, more boulders had to be hauled in and dumped on top of those from the year before. This procedure was still going on after 1910. People who saw these loads of large boulders dumped in that area of Main Street wondered what difficulties the contractors would have in excavating there when the 1973 Main Street paving and storm sewer project was done. The diggers had no difficulty. The boulders had sunk out of sight."

"Before the paving of Main Street, storekeepers were sorely tried by the presence of the tie racks [for horses] in front of their establishments. The horse, like all horses, stamped and pawed the ground and in wet weather they literally sprayed the fronts and show windows with muddy water and other things. Some of the buildings were muddied to their eaves."