BAXTER — A project 10 years in the making is now taking shape.
On a woodsy piece of land in Baxter lies the first stages of a place of possibility and wonder, where nature meets learning and imaginations can run as wild as the children behind them
The WonderTrek Children’s Museum will soon call the land home.
A crowd of community members — including representatives from Sourcewell, WonderTrek and the city of Baxter — gathered off Ironwood Drive on Tuesday, July 22, to break ground on the project, which will see an indoor adventure studio, outdoor play exhibits, gardens, trails, pond and a stream encompassing nine acres.
“It’s a beautiful place where kids are going to be able to learn from their play, enjoy time with their families and just really be together as a community,” said Paul Drange, chief regional solutions officer for Sourcewell and chair of the children’s museum board.
“There’s a lot of work left to do, but we really want to celebrate today for the work that’s been done,” he added.
Sourcewell contributed $5 million to the museum, which was first dreamed up in 2015 by Sourcewell CEO Chad Coauette. It started with photos and an article in Minnesota Precision Manufacturing magazine.
“I walked down the hallway into Paul (Drange’s) office, and I said, ‘This idea, there’s something bigger here that I wonder if we could do something like that in our region,’” Coauette told the crowd Tuesday. “A place where kids could explore, they could build, they could play, and then the grown ups could learn right alongside them.”
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