R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press Attendees of a recent event to celebrate the completion of Escanaba’s planet walk revitalization take a tour of the first few stations on Ludington Street.

ESCANABA –The Delta Astronomical Society (DAS), the staff of Genesis Graphics, the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) director and friends attended on Wednesday a casual celebration to unveil a plaque in Escanaba City Hall that recognizes donors who made the updated planet walk along Ludington Street possible.

The planet walk, a scale model representing the solar system, was first installed in 2002. Twelve stations along Escanaba’s main downtown street included informational signs about the sun, planets, and the Voyager spacecrafts. Though there are now several similar models elsewhere in the world, DAS says Escanaba’s was the first.

With the sun shrunken down to a sphere one foot in diameter, every 12 inches of the walk represents 865,000 miles of empty space. ​The walk places the planets and Kuiper Belt objects at their average distances from the sun, though all in a straight line, which isn’t realistic; to truly grasp the scale of the real solar system, one should imagine the planets flung out in various directions from the sun, moving along their respective orbits.

As happens, developments in science and discoveries in astronomy made the information on the old signs outdated. Plus, it was time for revamping for cosmetic reasons, too — the old signs had been black-and-white, the diagram wasn’t perfectly to scale, and some of the posts had been damaged.

John Burroughs, whom another DAS member referred to as the “planet walk mechanical engineer,” had built a drill press in his home to etch the original posts 23 years ago. Burroughs was in attendance on Wednesday wearing a vintage DAS t-shirt and a hat that read “Got Milky Way?”

For the couple posts that needed replacing recently, outgoing DAS President Matt Jensen used a computer numerical control (CNC) machine to carve the lettering.

DAS is a nonprofit with limited funds, but when they began to announce that they were looking to update the planet walk and have new signs made, there was no shortage of donations. Most came from local community members, but DAS also received a sizable check from the owner of Bob’s Knobs, a leading producer of telescope knobs.

DAS hired Genesis Graphics to make the new signs, which contain updated information and QR codes. Kari Anderson was the designer who, based on DAS visions, mocked up the colorful new signs for all stations.

Last summer, Leona Young-Beaudoin hand-painted the lettering on all the posts. Between cleaning and painting the names of each station on two sides while crouching on the sidewalk, she said it took about two hours to do each one.

One incident, humorous in retrospect, occurred when DAS members Burroughs and Dan Young were dismantling the old signs. A concerned citizen, observing what looked like two vandals destroying downtown Escanaba’s beloved planet walk, called the cops. Public Safety arrived on scene, and the two men had to explain themselves.

With the help of the Escanaba Downtown Development Authority (DDA), DAS also made literature rack cards advertising the planet walk, which DDA Director Craig Woerpel said are in “every welcome center in the U.P. and all the hotels in the area.”

Tri-fold brochures have been printed and are now available at the first station with the sun model outside the Escanaba Public Library. They include even more current information than the new signs do, since 128 more moons around Saturn were discovered in 2025.

At the celebration at City Hall, DAS thanked the donors and parties who made the new planet walk possible and provided refreshments to the small crowd. Young lamented that he hadn’t been able to find Mars bars, but there were Milky Way bars, cookies, pop and water. It was not specified what the cookies represented, astronomy-wise, but perhaps the dark chunks were meant to be black holes drawing in chocoholics.

The team from Genesis Graphics, including owners Teri and John Ocha, attended, even temporarily closing the shop to do so.

Though the City of Escanaba had been invited to attend the celebration, which was at noon on Wednesday, no one from their offices made it to the event.

After getting a look at the new plaque in City Hall, the congregation moved outside to check out the first few stations in a mini-tour.

The construction to be done on Ludington Street this summer will affect the planet walk — the stations will be temporarily removed — but they will return and hold their places along the new streetscape. Additional plaques recognizing donors at each station are also to be added after the road construction is completed.

R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press
Dan Young of the Delta Astronomical Society holds up a freshly printed card describing Escanaba’s planet walk, which has just gotten a major upgrade to reflect scientific advancements. Made to draw tourists to downtown, these cards will be in literature racks in welcome centers and hotels.

R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press
A sign at Escanaba City Hall show donors to the Planet Walk project.