Centennial History Crawl, June 18, 2011
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As one of the celebratory events for our Centennial year, a History Crawl was planned and executed on Saturday, June 18, 2011 from 10 am to 3 pm. It was a self-guided walking history tour along with some fun activities and exhibits at the Remer Depot.
In the early planning stages for this event it became quite clear that this could be an enormous undertaking; the thought of gathering 100 years of Remer history and portraying it to the public in a fun and informative way was a little overwhelming. So to make it manageable for our small committee, we choose to focus on the buildings and businesses during the early 1900’s within a two-block square on Main Street. Starting from the Depot building, the tour traveled east along the north side of Main Street to Second Avenue NE, crossing to the south side of Main St. & Second Ave. SE and back west to Etna Ave. Using photos and excerpts from the 1997 compilation of Remer’s history (1), seventeen sites were recognized with a short synopsis of the site’s historical distinction; each in a framed display and numbered to correspond with the ‘Historic Walking Tour’ brochure that visitors could keep as a souvenir from the event.
In the Depot people gathered for a lunch provided by St. Paul’s Catholic Church, while ‘ole time piano music was performed by local resident Tom Witherow. Centennial T-shirts, sweatshirts and commemorative wooden medallions could be purchased, and visitors got a special viewing of the video “Eagle Country”(2).
One of the highlights of this event was the logging display and demonstrations outside the Depot. We were fortunate to get Ed Nelson from the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids; a current logger and farmer that uses draft horses rather than modern day equipment. He brought with him two percheron horses to demonstrate logging techniques, and his witty side-kick Duane helped folks learn the proper use of a cross saw.
We’ve included some of the event’s photos.
Footnotes:
(1) Remer’s history compiled by Cecelia M. McKeig was a project of the Remer Civic Club, copyright 1997, for the Cass County Centennial 1897-1997.
A copy of this publication can be purchased from the Chamber at the Depot.
(2) Eagle Country video was made possible through the MN Tourism Bureau and The Remer Area Development Corp.and was video-photographed and produced by Kirk Myers via 1987-89.
