Wow. I remember when we used to run the streets of LaCrosse while stationed at Ft. McCoy, WI. Your typical college party town. There was probably 2% blacks there then, situated halfway btw Milwaukee and the Twin Cities on the border of Minnesota.
There was a huge conspiracy theory of a serial killer in LaCrosse due to all of the drownings of college students in the Mississippi River who got trashed and wanted to skinny dip in those undercurrents.
They use the sandbars in the river as party islands and get reckless with it.
Kabat was elected mayor at the age of 18 (or thereabout) back then...the youngest mayor elected ever in the state. He wasn't married back then though.