I painted this because I like architecture and history, and this building looked good in the winter light. That was really the start of it.
The snow, the sunlight, the bare trees, and that big old warehouse all lined up in a way that felt worth painting. No dramatic story. Just one of those scenes that had enough shape and character to hold the whole thing together.
There’s real history behind it too. Viroqua was tied closely to tobacco in the early 1900s, when Vernon and Crawford counties became a major tobacco-growing area in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that the Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse in Viroqua was built in 1906 and was one of the largest and most modern tobacco warehouses in the state, and that the Northern Wisconsin Tobacco Co-op Pool later bought it after the 1921 price collapse. Another Viroqua tobacco warehouse at 518 E. Walnut was also built in 1906 and later used by the Northern Tobacco Pool.
That history is part of what makes buildings like this interesting. They’re not just old. They’re leftovers from the part of town’s working life that built a lot of what came after.
Want a print instead? You can find prints of this piece here:
Tobacco Warehouse Viroqua
I painted this because I like architecture and history, and this building looked good in the winter light. That was really the start of it.
The snow, the sunlight, the bare trees, and that big old warehouse all lined up in a way that felt worth painting. No dramatic story. Just one of those scenes that had enough shape and character to hold the whole thing together.
There’s real history behind it too. Viroqua was tied closely to tobacco in the early 1900s, when Vernon and Crawford counties became a major tobacco-growing area in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that the Bekkedal Leaf Tobacco Warehouse in Viroqua was built in 1906 and was one of the largest and most modern tobacco warehouses in the state, and that the Northern Wisconsin Tobacco Co-op Pool later bought it after the 1921 price collapse. Another Viroqua tobacco warehouse at 518 E. Walnut was also built in 1906 and later used by the Northern Tobacco Pool.
That history is part of what makes buildings like this interesting. They’re not just old. They’re leftovers from the part of town’s working life that built a lot of what came after.
Want a print instead? You can find prints of this piece here:
Tobacco Warehouse Viroqua