STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — Officials in Stevens Point held a walk-through ceremony for the Cultural Commons in Pfiffner Pioneer Park on Monday, signifying that the partially-completed area is now open to the public.
“It is designed to showcase not only the history of this area but our partnerships across the globe,” said Mayor Mike Wiza. “[Along with] the indigenous people. The people that were here before we were.”
The park will contain artifacts and information about all three of Stevens Point’s sister and partner cities. Although some of those aspects have not yet been installed such as a bell from sister city Rostov Veliky, Russia which is a city known for its bell towers.
Stevens Point’s other sister city of Gulcz, Poland is known for its rivers, Wiza says that will be represented by the park’s water features. A stone from the mountains of partner city Esteli, Nicaragua is already in place.
In addition to those partner and sister cities, the park will contain plants and additional artwork to honor the Native Americans who cared for the land before it was settled. “We, the Anglo-Saxon typical American, is an immigrant. We immigrated here, we were not here originally. So the indigenous people that were stewards of this land before us need to be recognized, and I don’t think we do enough of that these days,” said Wiza.
Mayor Wiza says he does expect the area to become a destination and part of the downtown area, but the main goal of the Commons is not to draw tourism.
“That’s secondary to the educational aspect,” said Wiza. “I hope people walk away with a better sense of how similar we are with some of those other cultures, and also how small our little piece of Stevens Point is compared to the whole world around us.”
Wiza adds that the park is open to the public now but it remains a work in progress. New features will be added regularly over the next few weeks with a targeted ribbon-cutting date of September 2019.
