Gateway-West Central Conference
The Gateway-West Central Conference is an affiliated pair of former high school athletic conferences with their membership concentrated in west central Wisconsin. Competing from 1941 to 1952, all member schools belonged to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.
History
The Gateway-West Central Conference was founded in 1941, resulting from a split of the nine-member South Central Conference. Logan High School in La Crosse was not only the largest high school in the conference, it was the most dominant with perennial contenders in multiple sports. Coupled with being a geographic outlier in west central Wisconsin, the smaller schools to the east voted to remove Logan from the conference in 1941. The three closest schools geographically to Logan voted with Logan to keep them in the conference, but were outnumbered by a 5-4 margin and formed the Gateway Conference. Another conference under the same organizational structure was formed by three members of the Gateway, along with Mauston of the Juneau County League and Westby of the Monroe-Vernon Conference which was called the West Central Conference.The two conferences were affiliated but competed for two different championships, and all games played between the three dual members counted in the standings for both leagues. This arrangement lasted until 1947, when the Gateway Conference was dissolved and three of its members joined with Chippewa Falls to form the North Central Conference under the same organizational structure. Westby also left the West Central Conference as football members to join the new Scenic Central Conference that year. Two years later, this alignment was scrapped in favor of a return to the original Gateway Conference lineup for the 1949-50 school year. The Gateway and West Central Conferences continued competition for three more years before both were disbanded in 1952.
Membership timeline
Gateway/North Central Conference
Full members
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:23
Period = from:1941 till:1952
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
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id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
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width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:La Crosse Logan
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Sparta
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Tomah
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1947 text:Viroqua
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1949 till:1952 text:
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1947 till:1949 text:Chippewa Falls
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1941
Football members
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:23
Period = from:1948 till:1952
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id:line value:black
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bar:1 color:lavender from:1948 till:1949 text:Chippewa Falls
bar:2 color:lavender from:1948 till:1952 text:La Crosse Logan
bar:3 color:lavender from:1948 till:1952 text:Sparta
bar:4 color:lavender from:1948 till:1952 text:Tomah
bar:5 color:lavender from:1949 till:1952 text:Viroqua
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:1948
West Central Conference
Full members
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:23
Period = from:1941 till:1952
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Mauston
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Sparta
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Tomah
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Viroqua
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1941 till:1952 text:Westby
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1941
Football members
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:23
Period = from:1942 till:1952
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PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
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width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:lavender from:1942 till:1952 text:Mauston
bar:2 color:lavender from:1942 till:1952 text:Sparta
bar:3 color:lavender from:1942 till:1952 text:Tomah
bar:4 color:lavender from:1942 till:1952 text:Viroqua
bar:5 color:lavender from:1942 till:1948 text:Westby
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1942