'History in your Backyard' to offer 10-stop tour of Woodbury's heritage

To celebrate the city's history, the Woodbury Heritage Society will host a ten-stop "History in your Backyard" tour of the city on Sunday, Aug. 13, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The free event starts at Heritage House on the corner of Radio Drive and Lake Road, where participants can grab a map and passport to visit 10 sites that tell the story of Woodbury's past.

The sites include the Burr Oak exhibit, the Kavanaugh Log Cabin, the District 25-Middleton school, Historic Military Road at La Lake Park, Heritage House, the August Miller Barn, the Oehlke House and the Charles Spangenberg Farmstead — the only site in Woodbury listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The ninth-largest city in the state saw its first European settlers in 1844, when an Irish man and two Scots claimed land there, according to the Heritage Society. What followed was a history of farming, the first schools, the creation of a local government, the arrival of electricity and more roads. The city today has 80,000 people and some 55 parks.