Merrill milk jugs and a whole lot more make up the latest Community ArtShare display at T.B. Scott Free Library. This over-the-top collection of Merrill memorabilia is being exhibited on the library’s second floor through the month of July.
Featured collector Brion Hoffman has been collecting Merrill history for 25 years. His collecting passion, which began with finding a milk bottle in the woods, has grown to where Brion collects anything of historical interest from anywhere in Lincoln County. Items in Brion’s collection range from historic postcards, to historically significant letters, to crates and milk, other dairy, soda, and alcoholic beverage containers bearing Merrill business names, to calendars and other advertising specialties produced as souvenirs or promotional items for Lincoln County businesses.
Brion’s love of the rare, collectible, unusual, and beautiful has recently led Hoffman to starting his own business—Generations Antique Company, located on First Street in downtown Merrill.
Brion credits his parents and especially his deceased father Harvey “Hobber” Hoffman for helping his collection grow throughout the years. “Without them,” Hoffman states, “my collection would not be as vast as it is today!”
The public is welcome to visit T.B. Scott Library to view this exhibit and all the wondrous things the library has to offer. T. B. Scott Free Library’s “Beyond Books: Community ArtShare” features a new exhibit every two months on an ongoing basis. The program was made possible by a $10,000 grant from the Mead Witter Foundation, Inc. of Wisconsin Rapids.