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Home > Local Features by WXPR > Repurposing the Past: How Historic Buildings Look to Spark Growth in Mellen, Merrill
Podcast: Local Features by WXPR
Episode:

Repurposing the Past: How Historic Buildings Look to Spark Growth in Mellen, Merrill
Category: Government & Organizations
Duration: 00:05:36
Publish Date: 2021-02-04 06:36:11
Description: The words “Mellen State Bank” are etched into the sandstone façade over which Jeff Peters ran his right hand on Tuesday. “It feels like history,” he said. “It almost feels like the history of connecting this area.” Those carved words and the one-story façade look just like they did when the Mellen State Bank opened in 1902. The sandstone was quarried on Basswood Island in the Apostle Islands, the same sandstone used to build fashionable brownstone homes in East Coast cities. But the building behind the beautiful rock has been vacant since 1959, a symbol of a town that’s changed over the decades. On the same block as the bank building in Mellen, Peters pointed out where there used to be an Army/Navy store, a grocery store, and a drug store with a soda fountain, scenes from a childhood where his roots run deep. “My great-grandparents went to school in Mellen. My parents went to school in Mellen, lived and worked in Mellen. My daughter went to school in Mellen. My wife and I went to
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