By Wayne Kruse
What started with a conversation over coffee more than 50 years ago has become one of Marysville’s most recognizable traditions.
Marysville’s connection to the black squirrel dates to 1969, when local businessman Bill Strange returned from a trip through Olney, Illinois, a community known as the “Home of the White Squirrel.”
Strange thought Marysville could use its own unusual claim to fame and suggested the black squirrel. His idea became a topic of conversation among the Old Buzzards, a group of local businessmen who regularly gathered for coffee.
By 1972, the idea had reached city hall. Then Mayor Mert Ott credited city councilman Phil Morsch with helping turn the conversation into something official. Morsch lived across from City Park and had a particular fondness for the black squirrels he watched from his home. He also wanted them protected.
Morsch and City Clerk Jay Funke drafted Ordinance No. 1027, which the city council unanimously approved. The ordinance named the black squirrel Marysville’s official mascot, provided protection for the squirrels and established an annual Black Squirrel Day. The ordinance called for “celebration, parading, pageantry, feasting and other nutty or squirrelly activities appropriate to the day.”
Marysville held its first Black Squirrel Day on October 16, 1972. The celebration has changed names and formats through the years, but the black squirrel has remained part of the community’s identity ever since.
Decades later, Marysville found another way to put its mascot front and center.
The Black Squirrels on Parade public art project started with a joke.
During a meeting of Marysville’s Convention and Tourism committee, Rick Stoll suggested purchasing a giant black squirrel statue for City Park. He thought visitors would take pictures with it, share those pictures and help promote Marysville. Committee members laughed at first, then realized the idea might actually work.
The project began in 2015. Organizers initially hoped to sell 10 statues. Instead, 21 were purchased and placed around Marysville in October 2016.
The design itself started at Marysville High School. April Spicer, who was the school’s art teacher at the time, asked her students to develop ideas for the squirrel, and 17 students created 18 inch sculpture prototypes. Rachel Frese’s design was selected. Patrick Keough of America’s Fiberglass Animals in Seward, Nebraska, then used that sculpture to create the five foot tall fiberglass squirrel that became the basis for the statues around town.
Businesses, organizations and families purchased the squirrels and worked with artists to give each one its own personality. The project continued to grow. After the first group went on display, organizers again asked for sponsors and sold another 13 squirrels.
Another 17 squirrels joined the parade in 2022 as Marysville celebrated the 50th anniversary of being named Black Squirrel City.
Now, the parade is growing again.
Ten new black squirrel statues will be unveiled at 3 p.m. Saturday, October 24, as part of Black Squirrel Fall Fest 2026. The new squirrels will add another group of original designs to a public art project that has become part of the way residents and visitors experience Marysville.
The statues have done what that tourism committee hoped they might do when the idea first surfaced more than a decade ago. People stop. They take pictures. They look for the next squirrel. And something that began as a playful way to promote Marysville has become another piece of a much older story.
Black Squirrel Fall Fest will continue that tradition October 24. The 10 new squirrels will be revealed at 3 p.m. and remain on display until 7 p.m. Downtown activities throughout the afternoon and evening will include food trucks, dancers, old fashioned games, Treats on Broadway, a costume contest, hayrack rides, roving performers and a donut eating contest, with the Marysville High School band performing at 7 p.m. and the Haunted House beginning at 8 p.m.
More information is available at onemarysville.com.
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