Beautification Week

Wausau's Beautification Week

For nearly 30 years, Beautification Week was held in Wausau. In 1971, the Beautification Committee of the Wausau Chamber of Commerce organized a extensive community effort to encourage the cleaning up and beautification of the City of Wausau. With the help of service clubs, garden clubs, local churches, businesses, and city leaders, the event helped promote the idea of city beautification for their community.

Over the course of the 1970s, the celebration of Beautification Week featured a number of notable events.

There was the popular flower give-away that would accompany the celebration each year. This allowed many people to start or expand their home gardens, and was probably the most popular event over Beautification Week's lifetime. Often there would also be an associated event to encourage the planting of flowers and plants in public spaces across the city. 

^ People gathering for the free flower give-away, hosted by the Wausau Fire Department, 1970s.

There were community efforts to paint the homes of people who needed help, to encourage people to drop off unwanted junk at the landfill, and to tow away old junkers rusting away in the backyard.

^ Some trash being readied for a trip to the landfill, c.1970s

Some of the first efforts to promote recycling appeared as part of these events, (note that Earth Day was first held in 1970 and there was a similar interest in environmentalism at the time). And there were always efforts to encourage people to go out and clean up litter and garbage in public parks, at your local church, and your own home. And in addition to flower planting, people were encouraged to plant trees (note also that Arbor Day started in 1972).

There was often a component of education for the youths of Wausau. This sometimes took the case of working with local youth groups, like the Y-Clubs of the YWCA or the Boy and Girl Scouts. it sometimes meant specifically working with the schools to encourage beautification in their own ways. But the most common way to involve kids was the poster contest that took place every year. Frequently the slogan of Beautification Week was chosen from the posters submitted by the kids.

^ Winners of the Beautification Week's Poster Contest in 1976.

And there would always be a celebration that included a "sweap" of public streets, with the public invited to parade through the streets with brooms, led by city officials and the leaders of local clubs. The parade would end at a ceremony where speeches were given and the community thanked for their willingness to participate.

^ The procession to Big Bull Falls Park in 1976.

In the 1980s, a few new traditions were added. The Adopt-A-Park program encouraged peole to go out and clean up their adopted parks. They also started to announce the start of week with the firing of Marchetti's cannon.

^ Marchetti's Cannon on the grounds of the Marathon County Historical Society before it was fired to start up BW for 1991.

By the 1990s though, the focus of Beautification Week had almost exclusively led to the awards given at the annual banquet. These awards were given to recognize the hard work and dedication of individuals, businesses, churches, and groups to keep the city looking at it's best. These ceremonies had been part of Beautification Week since the beginning, but as the years went by, almost all the other components of the celebration had fallen by the wayside.

^ The group of award recipients in 1976.They included representatives from St. Johns Episcopal Church, the Parks Department, Valley Garden Club, City of Wausau, the Good Earth Garden Club, the Wausau Jaycees, the Wausau Junior Women's Club, the Wausau Women's Club, the Child Care Center, and the YWCA Garden Club.

The End of Beautification Week

By the 1990s, Beautification Week no longer saw the handing out garbage bags for people to go out and fill with litter, and by this point the concept of recycling was no longer a novelty, but had become a bigger part of life. The exception to this was of course the annual flower give-away, which proved far too popular to end.

But eventually the interest in the program was clearly declining. And in 1999, an attempt to streamline the Chamber of Commerce reduced the number of standing committees from 40 to just 5--including the Beautification Committee (and therefore Beautification Week).

In the end though, many cities across the United States during this period announced a "beautification week" in some fashion or another. But they rarely lasted beyond two or three annual observances, while Wausau's Beautification Week became an annual event that lasted 29 years.