This cache is part of the Linn Creek Trail: Marshalltown History series. Follow the bike trail to a series of caches highlighting prominent figures in Marshalltown history. Each cache will require you to leave the trail and search for a hidden cache. The caches in this series vary in difficulty and terrain.
Merle Miller (1919-1986)
Merle Dale Miller was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman, and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement.
Merle Miller was born in Montour, Iowa and raised in Marshalltown. Miller attended the University of Iowa and the London School of Economics. He was editor of both Harper's and Time magazines. He also worked as a book reviewer for The Saturday Review of Literature and as a contributing editor for The Nation. His work appeared frequently in the New York Times Magazine.
Miller wrote numerous novels, non-fiction works, and many television plays and screenplays. His career was interrupted by the advent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and Miller's inclusion on the blacklist. Miller died on June 10, 1986, in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, from peritonitis following surgery to remove a ruptured appendix.
Merle Miller Special Collections containing all of his taped interviews, research material, notes and correspondence are housed at three presidential libraries in Missouri, Texas and Kansas, as well as the University of Iowa and Boston University. They are all open and available to the public.
Do not cross the fence! The cache is not near the RR tracks.