Left - gonstead Clinic
C.S. Gonstead and the Gonstead Clinic
by Raymond L. Guenveur,O. D.
If there was ever a name that is synonymous with Mount Horeb it probably would be C. S. Gonstead, D. C. Certainly he and his chiropractic practice had a great deal to do with helping to make Mount Horeb the fine community that it is. At his peak he saw several hundred people a day, six days a week and thought nothing of working 18-to-20-hour days.
Gonstead was born July 24, 1898 in Willow Lake, So. Dak. After the family migrated to Wisconsin he was raised on a small dairy farm in Mount Vernon. His mother, Sahra, died at an early age and his father, Carl, raised five children on that farm. He grew up helping to milk 12 cows and tend to his father's Clydesdale horses. He had a sister, Grace, and three brothers, Eloid, Arthur and Merton, who would also become a chiropractor.
It is interesting to know how Gonstead became interested in chiropractic. At 19 years of age he was bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis. Having tried all conventional treatment without relief, his aunt sought help from a chiropractor, a Dr. Olson who practiced in Madison. Olson moved in with Gonstead and treated him with chiropractic adjustments every four to six hours for three days. Under Dr. Olson's care Gonstead got back on his feet and was pain-free. He made up his mind at that time he would go to the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Ia. and become a chiropractor. It was his way of thanking chiropractic for the cure he had received.
At that time he had a good job as foreman for the J. I. Case Company. Gonstead would tell how "My dad thought I had gone plumb crazy. You have a very good job--why would you want to go off and do something you know nothing about?"
Be that as it may, off he went to school. He helped finance his education by repairing watches. Gonstead graduated from the Palmer School of Chropractic in 1923 in a class of 800. He worked with Dr. Olson for a while and the next year he married Eivira Meister of rural Middleton and they decided to make their home in Mount Horeb. He opened his office in the old Mount Horeb bank building and as the saying goes, the rest is history.
There was no elevator in the bank building and from an outside entrance his patients had to climb a long flight of stairs to get to his office. It is my understanding that the line of patients waiting to see him started at his waiting room and snaked its way down the stairs and occasionally into the street. A physician, Dr. A. S. Thompson and a dentist, Dr. Waldo Brager, occupied the front suite of offices and Gonstead the back.
In 1939 he built the first Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic. It was located on Main Street where the present Mount Horeb Telephone Company now stands. It was quite a modern building for its day, completely equipped with an x-ray machine that took x-rays of the full spine, a fluoroscope and other equipment used in chiropractic adjustments, most of which he designed himself.
The staff took the x-rays and directed the patients to one of four treatment rooms and Gonstead would go from one to the other. He is quoted as saying it took him about three minutes to adjust each patient.
And the patients came in droves, and I know because when I first moved to Mount Horeb, for a time I rented space in the lower level of that building. There was also space for a beauty shop which was operated by Edna Thousand Sharer.
His practice continued to grow and he became known as the chiropractor's chiropractor since so many of his colleagues came to him for treatment.
Dr. Gonstead's day began at 6:30 in the morning when he started making house calls. He was usually at the office around 8 and except for a short hour for lunch and a similar time for supper he saw patients until at least 11 p.m. Following that, he had Mrs. Gonstead drive while he made house calls.
While the majority of his patients came from the surrounding areas, Gonstead stated that he had patients from all 48 states (that's how many there were then) and from Canada, Norway, Sweden and England. In 1978 he made a trip to Denmark where he participated in the opening of a chiropractic clinic named in his honor.
In order to get around more quickly Gonstead bought two planes in his lifetime, the last a twin-engine Beach Travel-Aire, and earned his license to fly the twin-engine plane. He was quoted as saying that he flew as far as St. Louis to treat a patient. He eventually built an air strip behind his home.
He was also a lover of Cadillacs and owned several at a time. He was the owner of a custom-built Cadillac which was made for Elvis Presley. He saw the car while at a meeting in Georgia and the salesman told him that Elvis would not accept the car since the color was an old man's color. Gonstead replied, "Well, I'm an old man and I'll take that car."
As his reputation as the chiropractor's chiropractor grew many of his colleagues urged him to conduct seminars to teach them his techniques. The first seminar director was Dr. Ted Markham but the seminars reached their full potential when Drs. Alex and Douglas Cox joined the staff. Both of the Cox brothers began studying with Gonstead in 1962. As Gonstead's reputation grew and the requests for seminars grew, it became necessary to expand the staff. It was at that time that Dr. John Cox, son of Alex, Dr. James T. Stoenner and Dr. T. Raymond Clinton joined the staff.
As the world came to Mount Horeb to see Gonstead, he and his staff went to the world lecturing on four continents and in all areas of the United States.
The Gonstead legacy to chiropractic and to the village of Mount Horeb is the Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic and the former Karakahl Inn, which he built on the east edge of Mount Horeb. The main floor of the clinic is designed to provide the full scope of chiropractic care for patients while the lower level is especially designed for the professional seminars. The Karakahl Inn was built to provide lodging for patients and during seminars for the chiropractors who attended.
Dr. Gonstead died on Oct. 2, 1978 of a massive heart attack. He was truly unique.
As a final tribute to their guru, the Gonstead practitioners in 1979 created the Gonstead Clinical Studies Society. The society provides Diplomat and Fellowship status to practitioners and reaches out to students and chiropractic colleges in promoting research and communications.