My coworker mentioned that his parents worked at Presto’s ammunition plant during WWII. Apparently Presto needed a site to store ammunition away from the plant so that, if sabotaged, it would not compromise the plant itself? He had heard from his parents that it was heavily guarded and required lots of security badges to enter.

Thanks for asking! Yes, there were tunnels, and as far as I know, they still exist. I like the remote-bunker idea, but it’s really my impression that the tunnels connected directly to the munitions plant. I’m guessing some readers will know for sure.

It’s also my impression that Presto didn’t dig the tunnels. The area on which Presto now sits was originally purchased by the War Assets Administration. The WAA built the sprawling “Eau Claire Ordnance Plant” – about the size of the old London Square Mall – and also, for the duration of the war, more-or-less took over Uniroyal (then called U.S. Rubber, and earlier Gillette Tire) and Presto (which was then on Ball Street on Eau Claire’s northside hill, and still called National Pressure Cooker).

Presto bought the Lake Hallie site from the WAA in 1948 for $350,000 (over $3 million in today’s dollars). On that site, Presto manufactured munitions and other military components off-and-on for decades (for example, roughly from 1954-1960, from 1966-1975 during Vietnam, etc.). At one time, it employed 3,000 folks from all over the region.

Presto’s munitions plant ceased operations in 1980, but the federal government kept the facility under active contract until 1993, paying Presto a few million a year to keep the machines oiled and at the ready. A few years before the huge plant was shuttered, Presto’s James Bartl told the Leader-Telegram, “We are not interested in wars, but if our government gets involved, then we’d rather have the jobs here in Eau Claire than in some other part of the country.”

From what I know about Presto’s new $50 million defense contract (and I don’t know much) it doesn’t include the Eau Claire facility – not yet anyway. In 2001, Presto bought Amtec, a munitions plant around Janesville -- trying to get back into defense contracting. I’d say it worked.

Anyway, from the timing of it all, I’m sure the Army dug the tunnels before Presto got involved with the site. The Army likes doing that kind of thing, of course.


There is a large, three-story block building across the street from First Lutheran Church. It looks like a hotel but I suppose it is dorm rooms now. Was it a hotel in a previous life?

Actually it was a hospital – Montgomery Hospital by name. I answered a question about it spring 2008 maybe (so long ago!), but I’ll recap.

In the 1890s, Dr. Alexander Montgomery Sr. ran the Eau Claire Institute, a sanatorium “for the cure of liquor, opium, and tobacco habits.” In 1908, Montgomery built his new hospital on the same site.

It was a family affair. Alexander and his wife Anna had seven children: at least four sons became doctors – William, John, Alexander Jr., and Robert – and daughter Elizabeth became a nurse. All worked at the hospital.

Sadly, when Alexander Sr. died in 1917, his institution died with him. His sons dispersed (Milwaukee, Minnesota), Anna sold the building, and a few years later developers remodeled it into the Oxford Court Apartments.

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.