For the second straight year, the Marshall Historic Home Tour has been canceled.  This year’s tour would have been the 57th Annual, but COVID concerns have put the event off until 2022.

The tour, which began in 1964, was scheduled for Sept. 11-12, for what the board is calling “a substantial risk of Covid-19 in the area.”

The Marshall Historical Society executive board made the decision Monday, Aug. 2, based on the state’s Covid-19 risk assessments for the Kalamazoo, Jackson, and Lansing regions.  This information is available at MIstartmap.info and shows most counties in the area in the Level-D (substantial risk) category.

Mi Safe Start Map SW Michigan
Mi Safe Start Map SW Michigan
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The executive committee was concerned not only for the risk to home tour visitors but to the homeowners who had placed their homes on the tour and to the local volunteers needed to staff the event.  Many volunteers would have been docents inside the homes and exposed to a large number of visitors.

Spokesman Bill Mabin said they had planned to have six private homes, six museums, and the National House Inn on this year’s tour.  He said that two of the private homeowners backed out, but not for COVID concerns.  But he said the committee had always planned on having the event only if the risk levels were considered low.   The home tour planning process had included an Aug. 1 assessment of the area Covid risk and wanted it at the lower Level-B status to continue with the tour.    Branch county is at an E level, and the rest of the counties in SW Michigan are at a D Level.

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The 2020 tour also was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.   The Marshall Historic Home Tour began in 1964 and has been the longest-running home tour in the Midwest.

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