The story of how a clinic in the small village of Mount Horeb rivaled the Mayo Clinic in the world of chiropractic is the story of Dr. Clarence S. Gonstead, a farm boy who grew up in rural Dane County. Clarence was born in 1898 in South Dakota. His family moved to Dane County some 10 miles from Mount Horeb, where his father took up dairy farming. The farm gave Clarence opportunities to study mechanics by repairing tractors and early automobiles.
As a young adult, Clarence contracted rheumatoid arthritis and was left unable to walk. After treatment by medical doctors and showing no signs of improvement, his aunt took Clarence to her chiropractor, who had been trained at the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. The school had been founded by D. D. Palmer, who is credited with originating the practice of chiropractic. Clarence’s life was changed by the chiropractor—he could walk again and was motivated to pursue a chiropractic career. After graduating from the Palmer School, he opened the Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic in Mount Horeb in 1924. He practiced until his death, in 1978.
According to Dr. Thomas Potisk, a chiropractor trained in Clarence’s methods and the clinic’s unofficial historian, what Clarence learned mechanically while working on the farm, he applied to chiropractic. Clarence advocated a hands-on approach and invented equipment to help his patients. His Nervo-Scope® is still used to measure minute heat differences in the tissues along the spine to establish where pressure is on nerves. Clarence put forward that the discs between vertebrae were the primary culprit of nerve pressure. Later, his ideas would become recognized as a model for understanding back pain.
When his practice outgrew his office space, Clarence built a new ultra-modern chiropractic office in 1939 to serve patients from all over the Midwest who learned of his methods through word of mouth. He worked six and a half days a week to accommodate all who came to him. Clarence “was up with the milkman and stayed until midnight and beyond, if needed,” says Dr. David Geary, Gonstead-trained chiropractor and current president of the C. S. Gonstead Chiropractic Foundation, which currently owns the building as well as the practice. “He would make house calls to see patients who were unable come to the clinic. His wife, Elvira, drove while he slept.” Soon, Clarence’s successes with his patients attracted the attention of other chiropractors. In the mid-1950s, Clarence began seminars and traveled across the country to teach his methods. To this day, seminars are offered around the world through two main Gonstad organizations: the nonprofit Gonstead Methodology Institute (GMI) and Gonstead Seminars.
As he was called to treat patients farther and farther away from Mount Horeb, Clarence learned how to fly an airplane and built himself an airstrip near his home in the mid-1950s. Some of his patients even flew themselves in for treatment.
Yet again, he needed to expand his facility. In 1964, the new Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic was built just outside the village boundary at 1505 Springdale Street, which is inside the village limits today. John W. Steinmann from Monticello was the architect. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places last year.
The brick- and glass-clad Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic building “has a Y-plan that, from above, reveals itself to be an abstract representation of the human spinal column, with the widest portion forming the head and shoulders and the narrowest portion, the spine,” as described in the Register nomination. The main reception area, offices, and adjusting rooms are in the widest section, the head and shoulders, while the spine contains more offices, adjusting rooms, dressing rooms, and specialized clinical spaces.
The spacious reception area was able to accommodate 100 patients when the clinic was its busiest. That was before more chiropractors were trained in the Gonstead method, so patients didn’t have to travel to Mount Horeb for treatment.
According to the Register nomination, the clinic is a “very fine example of contemporary style design that contains elements of the Wrightian style.” While the clinic was not designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as Clarence would’ve wanted, according to Thomas, Clarence’s home was designed by a Wright apprentice, Herb Fritz.
The Register nomination notes “the building’s most distinctive feature is its complex multigable roof, which created seven shallow-pitched gable ends on each of its two side elevations and three larger shallow-pitched gable ends across the side of its main façade.” A basement in the building includes the Gonstead Hall of History. Educational facilities are also located on the lower level. Seminars offered through GMI are taught there four times a year.
David appreciates the layout of the building and the beauty of its architectural design. Thirty years ago, the building was in need of major repairs when it was taken over by the Foundation. A fundraising campaign was undertaken. Two major benefactors, along with Gonstead practitioners, donated the money needed for the restoration.
But the restoration is not finished. Currently, bathroom renovation is underway—six bathrooms, upstairs and downstairs. The goal is to stay true to the mid-century modern look. The challenge is to ensure the tile in the bathrooms, while not exactly a match to what was installed 60 years ago, has the same look and feel of the 1960s.
One other project David would like to see completed is the renovation of the Karakahl Inn. Originally Karakahl Motor Hotel, the inn was built by Clarence in 1965 for patients and those accompanying them to have a place to stay when they came to Mount Horeb. Part of the inn was torn down and replaced by a Walgreens. The Inn suffered a fire in April 2023 and was deemed uninhabitable.
The Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic is open to the public for self-guided tours of the building’s architecture. Visitors are encouraged to call (608) 437-5585 before coming to Mount Horeb.
Jeanne Engle is a freelance writer.
Photographs provided by Dr. David Geary.
One other building designed by John Steinmann is the Wisconsin Pavilion, exhibited at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. The pavilion is a modernistic style rotunda shaped like a teepee and on the National Register of Historic Places. It was dismantled following the fair and reconstructed at 1201 E. Division Street in Neillsville. The structure is currently owned by Central Wisconsin Broadcasting Inc. Open seven days a week, visitors can see souvenirs from the World’s Fair and Steinmann’s original model as well as purchase cheese, wine, and gifts and enjoy an ice cream cone while there.