Merrill Township is a civil township of Newaygo County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 741 at the 2020 census.
Communities
Brohman is a small unincorporated community in the eastern part of the township, between sections 13 and 24 at , on M-37, about eight miles north of White Cloud and about 15 miles west of Big Rapids. It was established in 1882 under the name of Otia, after Otia Dingman who operated a hotel here. It was also for a time known as Dingman. The ZIP code for the community (which also serves the surrounding area) is 49312.
Woodland Park (also known as "Woodland Park Resort") is an unincorporated community in the northern part of the township, situated mostly between sections three and four on the north side of Woodland Lake (also known as Brookings or Crooked Lake), although settlement extends around the south side of the lake into sections nine and ten. It is at , about two miles south of Bitely and about two and a half miles northwest of Brohman. The Bitely ZIP code 49309 also includes the Woodland Park area. The community is approximately four square miles and contains a few hundred small parcels; however many of them are undeveloped.
African-American realtors Marion E. Arthur of Cleveland, Ohio, and Alvin E. Wright of Chicago, Illinois, platted the community as an all black resort town in 1923. Woodland Park began when the Brookings Lumber Company sold the remnants of its old lumbering village in Newaygo County. The site, 15 miles south of Idlewild and 37 miles north of Grand Rapids, was first put up for sale in 1920. Marion and his wife Ella Auther used earnings from commissions on the lots they sold at Idlewild to make a down payment on the village's 200 acre lake. By 1921, the Authers purchased most of the Brooking Lumber Company's parcels but still lacked enough money to finalize the deal. Wilbur Lemon, a white businessman from Chicago, Illinois and one of the founders of the Idlewild Resort Company, aided them by purchasing the last remaining Brookings parcel. This allowed the Authers to launch their new resort and rename it Woodland Park. The area experienced a relative decline after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened previously all-white resort facilities to African-Americans. The area last had its passenger rail access to Grand Rapids and other mid-western cities in 1966 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway terminated service through nearby Bitely and other towns on the route from Traverse City to Grand Rapids.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which is land and (2.59%) is water.
Demographics
As of the census