About this property
The Northern Wisconsin Co-op Tobacco Pool Warehouse or Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse is located at 504 East Decker Street Viroqua, Vernon County, Wisconsin USA. It was designed by the architects Parkinson & Dockendorff. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 14, 2003. Tobacco farming came to Wisconsin in the 1830s from the eastern United States and was appropriated by immigrant Norwegian farmers. Being a profitable cash crop, pioneers traveling to Vernon County brought the craft with them, farming much of the Coon Valley and Westby. Martin H. Bekkedal immigrated in the 1880s and became the largest tobacco leaf wholesaler in western Wisconsin by 1900. His 1906 brick veneered hybrid post-and-beam warehouse was one of the largest tobacco warehouses in the state. The profitability in tobacco is evident in the stylish curved parapets on the north and south walls with tobacco leaf medallion decorations. The building contains offices, a receiving room with a scale to weigh incoming tobacco, sorting and packing rooms in the basement, and "sweating" rooms where the temperature can be raised above 115 degrees to cure the tobacco. When prices dropped in 1921, the nation's first tobacco marketing co-operative was formed, the Northern Wisconsin Tobacco Co-op Pool. The co-op then purchased the building from Bekkedal. By enlisting 75% of the local growers, they shut out wholesalers and were able to better control their livelihood. Their success spawned other farmer co-operatives such as in dairy farming.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse
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Questions about this property
When was Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse listed on the National Register?
Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 14, 2003.
What type of historic resource is Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse?
Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse?
The period of significance for Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse is recorded as the modern era.
Can I research the history near Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse?
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