Council Grounds State Park
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Council Grounds State Park is just west of Merrill, on the shore of Lake Alexander, where the Alexander Dam backs up the Wisconsin River. The land was once Merrill’s Wildwood City Park. The city gave its 278 acres to the state in 1938, crews of the Works Progress Administration planted many of its trees and built its first facilities in the late 1930s, and it became a state park in 1978. Its name comes from stories that bands of Native Americans held councils and gatherings here, though the DNR says those stories have never been confirmed. I stopped there in the early afternoon of August 8, 2021, under a gray sky, on my way north to Ashland, right after Rib Mountain State Park. There is a lake and fairly dense woods to hike through: I walked the trails under the tall pines and hardwoods and out to the rocky shore of the lake.
Photos from Council Grounds State Park
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A trail through the pines.
A rocky point on Lake Alexander.
The woods away from the lake.