LA CROSSE, DIOCESE of. - City in the State of Wisconsin in the United States: suffragan of Milwaukee, it includes the following 19 counties in the State of Wisconsin: Adams, Buffalo, Chippewa, Clark, Crawford, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson, Juneau, La C., Marathon, Monroe, Pepin, Pierce, Portage, Richland, Trempealeau, Vernon, and Wood, with a total area of 15,078 miles.
It has a population of 577,206 inhabitants (1950 census), of whom 142,609 are Catholics, divided among 205 parishes, 72 chapels, and 56 missions, with 232 diocesan priests, 68 regular clergy, 1 seminary, 1 college, 14 « high schools », and 86 parochial schools; in 1946 there were 809 conversions. In the diocese there are 9 male religious communities with 730 professed members and 16 female communities (with 1,350 professed members), among them that of the Holy Family for girls of the Negro race. La C. was erected as a diocese on 8 February 1868 as a suffragan of St-Louis, at the request of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore held in 1866. Its first bishop was Msgr. M. Heiss. In 1870 it became part of the new ecclesiastical province of Milwaukee. Its territory, which then extended between the banks of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi, was divided in 1905 to form the diocese of Superior. The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Joseph.