The Riot of 1974, Kelly's Super Bar, and the Death of the Wisconsin Strip

Lots of Oshkoshers remember the strip of bars that stood along Wisconsin Avenue where it approaches the Fox River. Saloons began opening there in the 1880s. Some of those bars were in business for over 100 years.

By the 1960s, "the strip" had become Oshkosh’s most notorious drinking lane. The last tavern added to the line-up is at the southwest corner of Wisconsin and High. It opened in 1975 as Kelly's Super Bar.

Kelly's in 2019

The land where Kelly's stands was residential property through much of the 1900s. A modest, two-story home was there until the mid-1950s. The home was torn down and in the spring of 1958, Hartman's D-X Service Station was launched at 219 Wisconsin Street.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, May 8, 1958.

It would be auto shops and gas stations there for the next 17 years. The last of them was Bob's Sunoco. It closed in late 1973.

Bob's Sunoco at the end of its run in 1973.

By then, the strip was best known for the wild Saint Patrick's Day parties that annually flooded into Wisconsin Street. Those celebrations culminated with the Saint Patrick's Day "riot" of 1974. The drunks ran amok.

On Saturday, March 16, 1974, a crowd of several thousand gathered along the strip south of High Avenue. They lined the street waiting to gain entrance to taverns already filled to overflowing. The scene gradually degenerated as revelers stopped traffic and began smashing windows. Oshkosh Police arrived in riot gear to clear the street.

The encounter began peacefully but by midnight it had turned into a battle. Four Oshkosh cops reported being injured and five squad cars were damaged. The police made 22 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and resisting arrest. More than half of those taken to jail didn't live in Oshkosh. They had come here for the infamous party. Here are a few pictures from that day...

The aftermath on Wisconsin Street. The sign for Bob's Sunoco can be seen at the upper left.

After the riot, work began on converting the abandoned Sunoco station into Kelly’s. The Irish-sounding moniker was no coincidence. The 1974 melee had received national attention. Oshkosh was known as the place to be on Saint Patrick's Day. Kelly's was named to take advantage of that. The new bar was up and running when Saint Patrick's Day 1975 arrived.

But the 1974 riot was not going to be repeated. In its aftermath, the city adopted a new set of ordinances that included $200 fines for blocking traffic or having an open intoxicant on a public street. Oshkosh Police sent a memo to tavern owners warning that building capacity limits would be strictly enforced and that bars would not be permitted to open before noon and had to be closed by 1 a.m. The police presence was heavy along Wisconsin Street for the 1975 Saint Patrick's Day party. The mood was subdued. Nonetheless, people flocked to the bar with the shamrock over the door.

Oshkosh Advance-Titan, March 20, 1975

The 1974 riot was a turning point for the Wisconsin strip. A series of bar closures occurred there in the years that followed. One-by-one, the older taverns were being torn down. On the west side of Wisconsin Street, a couple of the earliest saloon properties were purchased by the University and demolished.

Even the legendary Tosh's was being rehabilitated. Tosh's was on the east side of Wisconsin Street a block south of Kelly’s. It was considered ground zero for Saint Patrick's Day mayhem. In the early 1970s, Tosh's held the dubious honor of selling more Schlitz Malt Liquor than any other bar in America.

The one-story building on the corner was the site of what had been Tosh's

Tosh's was sold in 1976 to Bernard and Catherine Klinzing and John and Doreen Supple. The Supple's also owned Shakey's Pizza in Oshkosh. Their sons, Jay, Joe, and John, would later launch Fox River Brewing Company. John Supple thought the strip was ready for a bar that offered something more than a never-ending beer bash.

The new owners dropped the Tosh's name. The long, straight bar was torn out and replaced with a circular bar more conducive to polite conversation. Table seating and a kitchen were added and the bathrooms were redone. They carpeted the floors. The bar reopened as Joey's in September 1976.

"The college students have changed a lot in the last three years," John Supple said a week before Joey’s opened. "They’ve matured, and I feel they're going to school for a purpose. They need a nice place which is close to campus to get together with their friends.”

Oshkosh Northwestern, October 14, 1976.

At Kelly's, they were pursuing a somewhat similar path. The bar's manager, Tom Hayes, had branded it a "Super Bar" providing college students with a range of services that included check cashing and basic grocery items. "The most important thing a bar in this area can do is be creative and stick with their own ideas," Hayes said.

In the end, though, the old ideas won out. The strip would never shake the reputation that made it notorious. Joey's had regressed to the mean by the time I moved here for school in 1982. It had become the Whiskey Run where for $3 on a Saturday afternoon they'd sell you a plastic cup and fill it with beer again and again until you couldn’t possibly stomach any more. It was not "a nice place." But it was a lot of fun.

The Whiskey Run became Barney's and finally Encounters before the building was torn down in 2001. And that was it for the strip. All of the old bars were cleared out. Today, there's just one tavern left standing on Wisconsin Street. Kelly's was the last bar to go up there. It came when the strip had reached the peak of its infamy. But it was the beginning of the end.