Pane by pane: LaCrosse Market gets ‘old’ glass

Two stained glass experts are building new stained glass windows for the LaCrosse Market to make it look like the building of the past.

Jack and Mary Kiernan of Mount Carroll, Ill., drove six stained-glass windows carefully packed in a rental truck more than 2,000 miles to LaCrosse to put in the upper portion of the windows at the market.

The Kiernans lived in Garfield and had a small shop in Palouse called New Morning Glass until a few years ago when they sold the business and moved to Illinois to be closer to family. They had never been to LaCrosse in all the years they lived in Garfield, Mary said.

They have been in the stained glass business for 30 years and have created windows for churches as well as businesses.

Nine years ago, Alex McGregor commissioned them to create stained glass windows for the Hooper store that was built in 1915, the same year as the LaCrosse store.

McGregor said the LaCrosse and Hooper pioneer mercantiles were designed the same year by Pullman architect William Swain and built by Ruark Bros. of Colfax.

“My McGregor colleagues have been pleased to be part of this team effort and to help Mary and Jack contribute their remarkable skills in restoring the original glasswork to the LaCrosse Market,” McGregor said in an email. “We are proud of their achievements and glad to help.”

LaCrosse Community Pride president Scooter Lyle said the cost of the project was donated.

Working from a drawing and an old photo, the couple labored five months to create the windows, trying to perfectly match the pattern of the old windows.

“They wanted us to create something that was historically correct,” Mary said.

The windows weigh about a ton, Jack said.

Although they’ve done stained glass projects and moved them, “we’ve never moved a project 2,000 miles,” Mary said.

The only other time they’ve moved a project was a few miles and Mary said they were nervous about going over one set of railroad tracks.

After inquiring about hiring a truck to transport the windows and finding no one who would do it, the couple rented a truck, packed the windows and made the drive themselves.

Jack Kiernan drove the truck and Mary followed behind in the couple’s pickup and a small camper. It took them six days to drive just more than 2,000 miles.

“It was brutal,” Jack said. “The truck is noisy and I worried about every bump. It was mostly the stress of the noise and the responsibility.”

After they packed the truck on May 2, they planned to leave the next day. However, a freak spring snowstorm dumped 15 inches of snow along their route and made traveling impossible. When the snow cleared after a couple of days, they began their journey west.

But in Sioux Falls, S.D., the truck broke down and they waited five hours as the truck was repaired.

“The rest of the trip was smooth,” Jack said.

“That’s because we couldn’t go over 60,” Mary added.

The last leg of the trip was long for them as they crossed four mountain passes through Montana.

The couple built the windows trying to recreate a historical reproduction. The purple glass they use in the windows is glass made by a local company that is no longer in business, Mary said. The purple panes were originally painted black and after a lot of soaking and scrubbing, look to be in their original condition.

The biggest window they created is 12 feet long and will be in the center window.

Mary has been soldering in the support bars of the windows they built. They did not put the support bars in the windows before they left because they didn’t want the windows to shift as they were shipped.

Jack has been reconstructing the one remaining original window using a tiny old photograph to make it look as close to the original as possible.

The windows will be installed today (Thursday). They will sit inside the store’s thermopane windows, never being exposed to the elements, Mary said.

“It will change the entire feel of the store,” Jack said.

“The way the light comes through the stained glass, it’ll be beautiful,” Mary said.

The couple plans to spend about two weeks at the LaCrosse site.

“We’re excited to see this happen in LaCrosse,” Mary said. “It’s fantastic to be a part of it.”