State and Local History

Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee Collection

The Upper Mississippi River Conservation Survey Committee was established in Dubuque, IA, in 1943, originally comprised of 22 biologists from Iowa and the surrounding states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri. Since then, the UMRCC dropped “Survey” from their name and has grown to more than 200 resource managers working in multiple disciplines including fisheries, mussels, recreation, wildlife, water quality, vegetation, education, and law enforcement. This collection is a result of a partnership between the UMRCC and Murphy Library to provide both digital and physical access to the UMRCC Library, now housed at Murphy Library.

UW-La Crosse Commencement Program Collection

This collection features every University of Wisconsin-La Crosse commencement program that is housed in Special Collections, dating back to the “First Annual Commencement” of the State Normal School in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on June 23, 1910. Additional materials are available for select years that may include everything from speeches and scripts to invitations and graduate lists. Each year expect that this collection will include the most recent commencement programs.

UW-La Crosse Journal of Undergraduate Research

Since 1998, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Journal of Undergraduate Research has served as a place for students to publish original research. Published annually by the Undergraduate Research Program, this collection contains individual articles written by UWL students on topics ranging from accounting and archaeology to theater and women’s studies, and everything in between.

UW-La Crosse Oral History Collection

Selections from the more than 3,000 hours of interviews recorded by the UW-La Crosse Oral History Program and housed in Murphy Library’s Special Collections.

UW-La Crosse ROTC Scrapbook & Photograph Collection

Donated to UW-La Crosse Murphy Library Special Collections in 2018, these three large scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, photographs, pamphlets, and other materials related to the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and the Military Science department on the UWL campus. In addition to the scrapbooks, this collection contains other photographs, multiple issues of The Cadence newspaper, and several cadet handbooks. Additional manuscript material is available in UWL Special Collections.

Verona Public Library

The Verona Public Library’s Local History digitization project is a growing selection of digital materials culled from the physical archives of their Local History Collection. This digital archive will include access to photographs, city directories, and community writing projects. 

Vesper Historical Photographs

These photographs depicting the businesses, industries and people of Vesper, Wisconsin were collected and annotated by Marlys Steckler.

Views of Antigo and Surrounding Langlade County

This collection of views of Antigo, the county seat of Langlade County, shows businesses, homes, schools, and street scenes of downtown Antigo throughout the 20th century. Antigo’s first home was built in 1878. It was incorporated as a city and made the county seat of New County (later renamed Langlade County) in the 1880s. The city was originally named Springbrook but was renamed Antigo using the middle word of an Ojibwe phrase Nequi-Antigo-Seebeh, which means “Where the river flows past evergreens.”  The collection also contains some scenes of towns and villages of Langlade County as well as resorts and towns in other regions of northern Wisconsin.

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