If Nate & Justin Vernon renovate the “mural building” across from Phoenix Park, the plan is to call it Union College after a “former tenant.” What was Union College?

    Thanks for asking! It was a modest business college with rooms on the third floor, briefly, a century ago (1910 to 14 or so). Its tenure probably seems more prominent because one vintage photo of the building (2 South Barstow) includes a banner-style sign for the college.

The site was first a horse barn for the Kneer House; the Kneer House still stands on the other end of the block, the oldest commercial building left in Eau Claire. Just after 1900, the local light and power company built the current brick structure to possibly be under the Vernons’ care. Several names over the decades: Eau Claire Gas and Light, Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power, Northern States Power. Various parties rented upper floors in the early years, the business college and a local dentist among them.

After NSP vacated in the 50s, it held the County Highway Commission briefly, then in the 60s the Golden Cue pool hall (sometimes called the Golden Q). Seventies into the 80s: a porn shop officially called the Adult Entertainment Center, but widely known as the “Mini Cini” for its seedy viewing booths. After that it sat sad-eyed, vacant, waiting for enterprising muralists and then the Bon Iver boys.

Art certainly changed its branding from the Mini Cini to the Mural Building. Now maybe music will change its brand again. Union College – not a bad name, although not really a significant part of its story. To me, it’s the Light and Power Company.

Will they really build the jail downtown now that the voters have spoken?

Oh please. I like living here and don’t want either side running me out on a rail. If they do build in the Randall Park Neighborhood, I just want a chance to look down the ginormous holes needed for the support piers.

I heard Sarah Palin has a family connection to Eau Claire. Is that true?

You must be thinking of Charlie Manson. Sarah Palin does have a family connection with Chippewa Falls, though!

Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, third child of Charles “Chuck” Heath, science teacher and track coach, and Sarah “Sally” Heath, school secretary. Her mom’s mom, Helen Gower, married her mom’s dad, Clement Sheeran, in 1929 in Idaho. Helen’s mom, Cora Strong – born in our own Chippewa County in 1886 – married Helen’s dad, James Gower, in Wisconsin, probably sometime between 1900 and 1910. Cora’s dad, Homer Curtis Strong, moved here from Connecticut. This makes Homer, of course, Palin’s great-great-grandfather.

Homer’s first Wisconsin stop was at Tomah, 1872. He worked for the Chicago, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway, building bridges I think. He then helped build the Wisconsin Valley Road, from Tomah to Wausau. In July 1874, he came to Chippewa Falls and helped build the Chippewa Falls & Western Railway from Eau Claire’s famous and sadly departed Omaha Depot to what they called “Omaha Junction” near Chip’wa (one of a thousand Omaha Junctions across America, I’m sure).

He was conductor on that road for a few years, then went into business (wholesale dealers in wood, coal, lime) with his older brother Seymour. Homer married Gussie Godfrey – who must have been from a kinda prominent family, seeing as they got married in Godfrey, Illinois. I suppose it could just be coincidence, like me getting married in Smoot, West Virginia.

Got a local question? Send it (17 S. Barstow St.) or email it (mail@volumeone.org) and Frank will answer it!  Frank has lived in Eau Claire for most of the past 41 years. He is an editor and researcher at the Chippewa Valley Museum, which is open all year just beyond the Paul Bunyan Camp Museum in beautiful Carson Park. You should go there.