I was visiting my hometown for winter break, and I decided to swing on over to the Merrill area in central Wisconsin to follow a lead or two and see what I could dig up. The lead in question was an old elementary school that once served roughly 80 children until it was closed down in 2007.
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Here's a shot of the main entrance from the road.
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And here's the playground, long since rusted and overgrown.
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The entire school was centered around one long hallway that ran the length of the building.
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The school had five classrooms total, corresponding to grades 1-5.
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The classroom walls were covered in graffiti. I actually figured out who did a significant chunk of it with five minutes of Googling. Pro tip- if you don't want to be identified as a tagger, don't paint the username for your personal Instagram on the walls.
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Here's the gymnasium/lunchroom, filled with all sorts of junk. According to an old news article, some vandals smashed up a bunch of it back in 2013.
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I accidentally tripped this motion detector as I reached the other end of the building, and had to beat a hasty retreat in case it was tied to a silent alarm or something. I was not expecting electronic security in a location this easy to access and with so little of value inside, so I wasn't looking for it until I heard it click.
Bonus location: On my way to the school, I stumbled across this abandoned house along the back roads of central Wisconsin. It looked virtually untouched except for several decades of natural decay.
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Here's an exterior view.
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It had a toy train inside.
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And also an old vacuum tube radio.
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Lastly, the kitchen. It looks like the owners just got up and left one day- the plates on the kitchen table still have the blackened crusty remains of a long since rotted meal.
All in all, it was a nice way to kick off the new year.