Postcards: Landmarks and Sites

Sugar Loaf above the Hot Fish Shop. The Hot Fish Shop was a local restaurant specializing in walleye and other seafood dishes. 

Winona's Interstate Bridge was opened in 1942, replacing the old High Wagon bridge that connected Minnesota and Wisconsin across the Mississippi River. 

When Ida (Cone) Landon died in 1899, her husband wanted a fitting memorial to her. Isabel Moore Kimball, a distant relative of Ida’s, was commissioned to fashion a statue of the legendary “Princess Wenonah.” After residing in Central Park for some sixty years, the bronze statue spent some time in storage, in Lake Park, in Plaza Square, before finding her current home in Windom Park.

The John Latsch Bath House was located just across the main channel from Levee Park. It was a favorite summer spot for locals and visitors. 

​Sugar Loaf towers about 580 feet over Lake Winona, a former channel of the Mississippi River. It was originally called Wapasha’s Cap after the hat a local Dakota chief of the same name wore. The bluff was well-known to the Dakota, early explorers, traders, tourists and river boat pilots. It looked much different then however, resembling the other rocky domed
bluffs along the river valley. Zebulon Pike stood atop Wapasha’s Cap in 1805 while exploring the region. Early Euro Americans noticed the bluff resembled a loaf of sugar that one could buy at the local general store, thus its name was changed to Sugar Loaf.

Quarrying operations began soon after Winona was founded in 1851, but it was during the 1880s when John O’Dea removed most of the limestone which was used as city sidewalks and building trim. Quarry operations were shut down around 1895 and what was left of the bluff is what we know Sugar Loaf as today. It became a landmark in 1950.

A view of Winona, most likely from Garvin Heights lookout. Lake Winona is in the foreground with the Mississippi River and Wisconsin bluffs in the background. 

Originally known as Riverside Park, Levee Park was platted as public property in 1896 under the direction of William Finkelnburg, a Winona city attorney. With some knowledge of engineering and landscaping, and borrowing from the parks he had visited during trips to Europe, Finkelnburg also designed the park and was instrumental in seeing it finished. The result was a park with winding graveled pathways, a grape arbor, a paved river landing, and a row of benches from Johnson to Walnut. At one time, Levee Park also contained two Native American mounds, one each at the foot of Main and Center, as well as two cannons which were later used for scrap iron during WWII. Much of the park was destroyed by the flood of 1965, and by the temporary dikes that were constructed in 1967 and 1969. Plans for a new park were debated for years, as the need to protect the city from flooding was balanced with the desire for an aesthetically pleasing park. The new Levee Park was dedicated in 1983. Today, Winona's Levee Park is being revitalized with new public spaces and outdoor event venues.