The Norwegian coat of arms features an upright, yellow lion, wearing a crown and wielding an axe. Recognizing the Norwegian heritage of Spring Grove, that lion would be a fitting source of the school nickname, the Spring Grove Lions. But “au contraire,” which in French means “to the contrary.” There is a 50-50 chance that the original namesake bronze lion came from France. Although that first Spring Grove lion was not Norwegian, two of its owners were Norwegian immigrants (both named Mons). The lion lore begins in Norway, passes through La Crosse with a side excursion to Houston.
Mons Anderson was born in Norway in 1830 into a farming family. After the death of his father, Mons, at only age 16, emigrated to the United States, where by 1848, was working in the City Hall Hotel in Milwaukee. A year later, he was a grocery store clerk. In 1851, his continuing quest for opportunity enticed him westward to La Crosse (approximate population 500). He married in 1853 and three years later built a store, the second brick building on Front Street.
Soon after this move, Anderson was appointed emigration commissioner for Dakota Territory and southern Minnesota. His personal representative met Norwegian immigrant ships as they disembarked in New York City. He was to select men at least six-feet tall and women and least 5 feet, 10 inchess and persuade them to settle in the area under Mons Anderson’s supervision.
When the immigrants arrived by train in La Crosse, they were met and taken to a barracks on 2nd Street where they were housed and cared for until they could depart for their permanent locations. There were those who took advantage of newly-arrived immigrants. But Anderson, known for creating wealth, was an honest man while providing for the immigrants. He was a banker for many Norwegian immigrants in western Wisconsin and southern Minnesota.
Anderson, quick to understand the value of land just being opened for settlement, began to purchase property in Minnesota. In 1859, he began to buy acreage on the banks of the Root River just west of the small village of Houston. Some land was purchased from two different parties on May 2; Anderson bought three more acres on August 15. Local historian Mason Witt surmised that he evidently was operating on credit, since the deeds went to Andrew H. Anderson.
Seven years later, the coming of the railroad determined where fortunes would be made. Mons platted an addition to Houston and on May 8, 1866, sold three parcels to the Southern Minnesota Railroad for $1.00 and “other and valuable consideration.” That property gave the railroad right-of-way across Anderson’s addition. The “other good and valuable consideration” included an agreement that the depot would be located in Anderson’s addition. He then sold lots in what would eventually become the permanent location of Houston. He had sole control of this property and all of the profit from the sales.
Meanwhile back in La Crosse, business was good as well. On December 30, 1860, he purchased a business from John Paul that included a lion statue. Months later, at the corner of 2nd and Main, he erected the largest building in the city at that time, 120 feet by 140 feet, four stories high. The life-sized cast iron lion was placed on the sidewalk at the store entrance. Lion artwork became his advertising symbol. Lions were inscribed on the doorknobs of his home.
In August 1867, friends found a similar lion statue in Paris and gave it to Anderson, who then had a pair of lions to guard his store entrance.
When there was a shortage of coinage during the Civil War (1861-65), Anderson minted his own copper penny for making change. Dated 1863, it had his lion emblem and words, “Sign of the Lion” on one side and on the other, ”Mons Anderson, dealer in dry goods, clothing, boots, shoes, etc., La Crosse, Wis.”
In 1878, Anderson built a two-story office addition for his business that was both retail and wholesale until Burlington Railroad laid tracks on 2nd Street. From then on, it was only wholesale, which at one time, employed 67 people with jobbers circulating throughout the Midwest. He was known as the “Merchant Prince of the Midwest,” doing business in western Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In 1903, he sold his business interests to Martin Brothers. He died from pneumonia on February 2, 1905, with his wife passing 30 hours later. Their funerals were held together on February 6.
It is quite possible that the closing of the retail part of the business might have been the time that Mons Anderson, in the early 1890s, gave one of his lions to his immigrant cousin and good friend Mons Fladager, considered the “Father of Spring Grove,” a pioneer merchant, who with his son Henry Fladager and family, operated a successful store in Spring Grove for 107 years until selling to Robert and Marilyn Hillman in 1967.
The lion greeted Spring Grove shoppers for decades and still peers out onto Main Street but now resides on a street corner in Viking Memorial Park next to a bust of Mons Fladager, whose inscribed memorial relates how the statue, an enduring symbol for the Fladager Family Store, was a favorite of the children who playfully sat on the lion when their parents shopped. It was the popularity of this lion that resulted in Spring Grove athletic teams becoming known as the Spring Grove Lions. Subsequent generations of children continue to enjoy the lion as they have for more than a century. The inscription on the lion statue reads, “DEDICATED TO THE CHILDREN OF THE COMMUNITY. DONATED BY THE FLADAGERS.”
The other lion has made its way to the La Crosse County Historical Society where it may be viewed in a courtyard at the La Crosse Public Library at 800 Main Street. But which statue made it to Spring Grove – the original lion or the second one from France?
Sources: Historic Notes of Interest, by Mason Witt, 1974; Mange Takk (Many Thanks): The Life Story of Leland and Louise Sundet by Michael Ransom, 2009; Soil, Timber & A Spring; The Story of Spring Grove, by Jane Briggs Palen, 1991; ”Historic Lion Statue Given to Spring Grove,” by P. N. Narveson in The Winona Daily News, July 28, 1968.
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