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As a boy, John Larson looked forward to visiting the area around Taylors Falls and St. Croix Falls, where his family's roots run deep. He vividly recalls anticipating these adventures away from the big city of St. Paul, where he grew up.

He enjoyed getting to know area townsfolk, visiting the spring in the hillside (at Springs Inn) where people on an overnight outing from the big city would fill waterbags and radiators. Larson's family camped and fished along the St. Croix in the 1920s -- a lifetime before Wild River State Park, or the national scenic riverway were christened.

Larson has had a relationship with the St. Croix River much of his life, and for almost 40 years now he has owned and operated Merrill's Landing. People have rented canoes, been transported up-river by Larson and his trusty Jeep, and he's been there when they got off the water at the Landing.

This spring, though, Larson came to the decision that Merrill's Landing will close at the end of 2010. The landing is actually owned by Xcel Energy and he and the company have agreed to terminate their contract allowing easement to the river.

Merrill's Landing, on County Road 16, has been a jumping-off spot for generations enjoying what the St. Croix has had to offer.

In the beginning it was called "Boats & Bait." The number of boats rented out of Merrill's Landing is incalculable. Patrons who came as children to the river's edge, return with their own off-spring to the quiet backwater above the hydro-electric dam.

Larson got the business from Ivan Merrill, who had carved his entrepreneurial niche into the riverbank not long after the turn of the century. Merrill was the Taylors Falls cop (constable on patrol). He also handled alot of the town's maintenance chores. Larson says it was Mrs. Merrill, however, who really ran the landing. Everybody knew it was she, who moored the boats at night to their anchors just above the dam. The boats were safer from vandals and thieves out on the water, Larson explains.

And if villagers would worry about Mrs. Merrill falling in, the story was that she'd laugh off their concern, saying, "All I have to do is walk uphill."

Larson said Mrs. Merrill would let local children rent a boat with a note from their mother. Merrill's Landing was THE gathering spot where mothers and babies went to cool off in the water and catch up on who was up to what.

Fork in the river

Larson's contract with Xcel is the last personal lease the power company has in effect along the St. Croix.

Chad Peterson, Siting and Land Rights Agent for Xcel, explains, "It is an appropriate time for the company to move on and develop a long term plan that involves either the city and/or the park service."

Over the years Xcel (and formerly as Northern States Power) has handed-over more than 25,000 acres along the St. Croix to local units of government, or to the park service. Going back to when Wild River State Park was established by the Minnesota legislature 37 years ago, the power company has systematically transferred its river corridor holdings into the hands of conservation entities.

It is not known yet if Taylors Falls City and Xcel will be working out an agreement to retain the landing as an access.

Larson says he would have preferred to attach the landing use to the sale of real estate he owns on the west side of #16. That might have kept Merrill's Landing going and there'd be somebody on-site to police it. Larson has concerns about vandals and inappropriate activity going on at the landing when he is out of the picture. (A family friend who manages the properties now.) He said he doesn't want to see the site earn a reputation as a trouble spot.

His potential land buyer was excited about the landing, but when Larson inquired about transferring the easement lease, the power company wasn't interested.

Xcel initiated notice to terminate what it terms the "commercial" use of the property-- a definition Larson finds humor in. Larson jokes that his accountant suggested Merrill's Landing be listed as a hobby on tax forms instead of a business; because the IRS would question how somebody could make so little revenue and still call it a business.

Larson sought legal advice on the Xcel notice to terminate, but accepted that, "I don't want to go on and on and on and fight that battle. Of course, what happens matters to me because I still have land there." (On the far side of County Road 16)

For its part, the National Park Service, headquartered almost directly across the river from the landing, supports maintaining access points along the river. The riverway national park superintendent wrote to Xcel, stating the federal government wouldn't mind seeing Merrill's Landing remain viable; but the park service superintendent also realized, "it's a company decision."

Running Merrill's Landing presented itself relatively late in Larson's life. He didn't sign the easement contract with NSP until he retired from the U.S. Military as a public information officer, and had racked up a career with the Army Corps of Engineers. (He wrote the history of the Chicago District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and has written for the Ramsey County Historical Society.)

Over coffee in the Roos House in Taylors Falls, where he and his wife Ingrid reside, the Larsons spoke of their love of history and of the river.

Larson's mother and father had a canoe that logged many hours on Lake Phalen in St. Paul, as well as on the St. Croix. It is still among their cherished possessions. The thought has even crossed his mind, Larson added, that he could have been conceived in a canoe.

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