Rivers Edge Commons — Attraction in Elk River

6/18/2023: A little history lesson for younger folks. This park is the original site of the Elk River Hardware Company, of which my father, Elmer, was a co-owner. He died 50 years ago on Father's Day in 1973. The store burnt down ten years later, now 40 years ago, also on Father's Day. While my dad was alive there were three hardware stores in downtown Elk River. You could get anything you needed from one of the three. I think that fact brought in a lot of business. It's a wonderful little park. Back in the day, the store even carried "nest eggs" which probably don't exist anymore. I'll save you the trouble of googling it, they were marble eggs put in the nest that encouraged hens to lay. And a little bit of technology history, back then, before 1973, Our Own Hardware stores were just computerizing their inventory, of course through the company, not at the store. The pictures are from several years ago, and your truly with my MC, probably breaking some park rules, but I was paying...

Nice little place in town there in Elk River. Great for those working in town too. Covered shelters. Cement slabs terraced so lots of folks can sit and enjoy the river flowing by. Concerts there weather permitting. Nice walk down a ramp to a dock area. Could fish there or come in by boat and park your boat there. The Mississippi River was really rushing by and on the high side when we were there. Some Pokemon gyms and stops there. And more Pokey stops if you walk down the downtown main street there by the park. Not really much of a walking trail, which is too bad. But you can walk down the main street to get some steps. Nice but very noisy. Besides gazing at the river there isn't much walking and communing with nature there. To cool off there is a little splash pad...

Our wedding ceremony took place at Rivers Edge Commons and we could not be happier with the location! Having built in seating and electrical for our DJ and Singer were a huge plus! We opted for a fall wedding due to the colored foliage along the Mississippi River. We are so lucky that our many of our guests showed up even when there was traffic in the downtown area. Parking is great as there are many places to park and the bars on main st are also a huge plus for event planning. The only little thing, we were not able to reserve parking spots for our wedding party vehicles but we made it work anyway. So glad we can revisit our ceremony site for anniversaries to come! Photo credit to Aaron...