The bustling streets of West Side Merrill in 1912 have a tale or two to tell: Floods and halberts, parks and bath houses, undertakers and river rats.
Merrill’s Jane Francoeur will explore all those topics and more during a series of “Merrill Walks” this summer focusing on Merrill’s West Side. The walks will be offered on Saturdays from May 25 to Aug. 31 (no walks on June 22, July 20 or Aug. 24), starting at 4:30 p.m. in the T.B. Scott Library parking lot.
The walks will include three refreshment stops, where participants can purchase a drink or a sweet treat. The casual pace of the walk allows for plenty of conversation and seeing the sights.
Reservations are not necessary; just show up and go. The cost of the walk is $5, with children under 12 accompanied by a parent free. The walks take about two hours, of which about half an hour is actually spent walking, and they end near where they begin.
Francoeur said she got the idea for the Merrill Walks after going on walking tours in Europe.
“I thought, Merrill has so much interesting history, it would be a neat thing to do,” she said.
During the West Side walks, much time is spent on August Stange, a prominent mill owner whose lasting legacy in Merrill includes the park that bears his name. The tour goes through Stange’s Park and past the site of the former Badger Hotel and Opera House, which was built by Stange for the “enlightenment” of the people of Merrill. The tour also includes a history of the buildings in the West Side business district.