Parkers Prairie: Gateway to the Lakes
New Veterans Memorial Honors Service
Driving into Parkers Prairie from the south on Hwy 29, visitors see today what pioneers saw in the 1800s. On one side of the highway, beautiful Lake Adley beckons. The lake is named for Warren Adley, one of the Minnesota surveyors whose road commission guided homesteaders to this gateway to the lakes country. It is now the centerpiece of a city park complete with swimming beach, picnic shelter, tent campsites, bike trail, and boat dock. There is ice fishing in the winter and a handicap accessible fishing pier in open water seasons.
Across the highway at Monument Park sit two wonderful tributes that celebrate Parkers Prairie history. The city recently completed an award-winning landscaping upgrade and added bench seating to the fieldstone historical marker dedicated in the 1930s. A bronze plaque proclaims, “This Tablet marks the terminus of the first trail into Southeastern Otter Tail County and the Parkers Prairie Settlement.” The newly refurbished monument held a flag raising for the first time on Veteran’s Day 2023.
An inspiring new Veterans Memorial in Parkers Prairie honors the sacrifices of service members in all branches of the military past, present and future. A committee of dedicated volunteers helped raise the funds for the project. Community partners such as the Parkers Prairie Lions Club contributed to the construction of the Veteran’s Memorial. West Central Initiative assisted with the fundraising. In addition to private individual and business donations, the project received $50,000 from the Minnesota legislature as part of the bonding bill that passed in 2023.
The addition of this new monument makes sense for a town named after a Civil War veteran. With his surveying partner Adley, Newton S. Parker laid out the roadway leading people to the lakes. An official ceremony dedicating the Parkers Prairie Veteran’s Memorial is scheduled for Memorial Day, May 27, 2024. The American Legion will hold a pancake breakfast that same day.
