Ashland Murals

 by Sharon Manthei

  Mural Walk T-shirts, decorator tiles and note cards are available for sale at the Ashland Museum at 509 West Main Street.

The new Veterans mural is completed.  How many faces can you recognize on the mural?  Brochures have been  printed to include this mural and the names of the veterans pictured will be listed in it. It is available at the museum. 

The first mural was painted in the summer of 1998 on the lake side of the former Ashland National Bank building, which is located on the corner of Main Street and Ellis Avenue. This mural includes several people who were instrumental in the development of Ashland and the area with the 1892 look of the bank as the background. Asaph Whittlesey, founder of Ashland, is pictured in his famous traveling gear, worn on his historic snowshoe trek to Sparta to catch the train to Madison to take his seat as Northern Wisconsin’s first representative the State Legislature. Others depicted on this mural include Samuel Stuart Vaughn and his wife Emeline Vaughn, early business and real estate entrepreneurs; Edwin Ellis and John M Dodd, early Ashland doctors; Sam Fifield, editor of first newspaper and Chief Buffalo, who fought for the rights of  the Ojibwe.

The summer of 1999 brought the Aviation, Jazz and Schiller Shoe Store mural. This mural is on the lake side of Watland’s Shoe Store, which was originally Schiller’s Shoe Store in the 300 block of West Main Street. This mural commemorates Ashland’s early aviation history, its jazz past, as well at the shoe store. Others on the mural include local musicians and store clerks, along with John C. Chapple of the Daily Press.

The Lumberjack mural on the side of the J C Penney store was painted in 2000. These loggers represent the many men and women who worked in the woods supplying logs for Ashland’s many sawmills which lined the bay front. The names of the lumberjacks pictured in the mural are listed in the Mural Walk Brochure.

The Storefront mural was painted in the summer of 2002 and the people were added in 2003. The store fronts represent many of our earliest businesses. Many of the buildings remain today. The people represent the citizens of Ashland.

The Dhooge’s Store mural depicts an early grocery store. This mural was painted on panels during the winter and mounted at 211 Chapple Avenue in the spring of 2000.

The Lighthouse mural, featuring three (3) Apostle Island lighthouses and their “keepers” was also painted on panels and mounted in the spring of 2000. It was moved to storage when the block, where it was located, was leveled to make room for the new BIA building. Its new home is in Menard Park at Main Street and Chapple Avenue.