The Joseph B. Funke Company was a candy manufacturer that constructed this building in 1898 as their confectionery. The building contained offices, salesroom, stockroom and shipping departments on its first floor; the chocolate department on the second floor; the cream department on the third floor and the hard candies were produced on the fourth floor. In 1907 the firm had 147 employees, although this number increased to approximately 220 during peak production times. Its candies were sold throughout the United States and also carried in the passenger cars of some of the country's major railroad lines. Business prosperity led to the construction of an addition on the back of the building in 1908.

Nationally and statewide, the candy industry experienced significant growth during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The value of products of Wisconsin confectioners increased by sixty-four percent from 1899-1904, eighty-eight percent from 1904-1909, and forty-one percent from 1909-1914. In 1914, confections were ranked 24th among all statewide manufacturing industries in terms of value of products.

As one of the larger candy manufacturers in the state, Joseph B. Funke Company products ultimately included over 160 different kinds of chocolates for fancy packages and over 500 other kinds of candies including bon bons, fibertines, pineapple dips, nougatines, nut caramels and caramel creams. The city of La Crosse had three large candy manufacturing companies and the Joseph B. Funke Company was the largest of those. The company occupied the building until the early 1930s when it closed. The building is representative of the city's turn-of-the-nineteenth century's thriving confectionery industry and the only surviving candy manufacturing building in La Crosse.