County note shelf
Marquette County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Marquette County. This shelf has 4 practical notes and 20 local stories.
24 notes
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- History and cultureThe Egyptian obelisks over an Ishpeming iron mineThe Cliffs Shaft Mine needed working headframes in 1919. Because the site was so visible, the company made its two concrete towers worth looking at too.
- History and cultureWhy Marquette's harbor light is painted redThe red brick lighthouse on the point in Marquette dates to 1866, still guides ore freighters into the harbor, and is the oldest significant building in the city.
- OutdoorsThe day nine billion gallons came down the Dead RiverIn May 2003 a spillway at Silver Lake Dam failed and emptied the reservoir down the Dead River, taking out a second dam, nine bridges, and a power plant — without killing anyone.
- History and cultureNorthern Michigan University started with 32 students and six teachersNorthern Michigan University opened in Marquette in 1899 as a teacher-training school — 32 students, six faculty, 22 acres — and grew into the largest university in the Upper Peninsula.
- OutdoorsRepublic moved homes so its open-pit mine could growWhen Republic's open-pit mine expanded in the 1950s, about one-fourth of the community's families and homes moved south. A free public overlook now helps tell that story.
- OutdoorsThe scrap-metal sculpture park a township tried to banLakenenland, on M-28 east of Marquette, is 37 acres of welded scrap-iron sculptures by Tom Lakenen — free, open around the clock, and born when officials called the art illegal yard signs.
- OutdoorsA 47-mile trail laid over the rails that hauled the ironThe Iron Ore Heritage Trail runs 47 miles across the Marquette Iron Range, much of it on old railroad grades, from Republic through Negaunee, Ishpeming, and Marquette Township toward Lake Superior.
- History and cultureThe mining town that burned to three buildings, then rebuilt by fallMichigamme grew up around an iron mine on the county's biggest inland lake — then a June 1873 forest fire wiped out all but a few buildings, and the town rebuilt within months.
- Money and taxesIs there a city income tax in Marquette?Neither Marquette nor any other city in Marquette County charges a city income tax -- and neither does anywhere else in the Upper Peninsula. The nearest one is Grayling, well over a hundred miles away.
- History and cultureMarquette's ore docks, where the iron range meets the lakeMarquette grew up as the port that shipped the Upper Peninsula's iron to the world. Its great ore docks still define the waterfront -- one a beloved retired landmark, the other still loading freighters with iron pellets today.
- History and cultureNegaunee and the birth of Michigan's iron industryNegaunee is where it all started -- iron ore found in the roots of a fallen tree in 1844, the first mine, the first forge. The Michigan Iron Industry Museum sits on the very spot where Michigan iron was first made.
- OutdoorsPresque Isle Park and Sugarloaf, Marquette's outdoor gemsTwo of Marquette's best-loved spots sit minutes from downtown: Presque Isle Park, a forested headland ringed by ancient black cliffs on Lake Superior, and Sugarloaf Mountain, a short climb to a sweeping view of the whole shoreline.
- History and cultureWho Marquette is named forMarquette -- the city, the county, and the university -- is named for Father Jacques Marquette, the French Jesuit missionary and explorer who traveled the Great Lakes in the 1600s and helped map the upper Mississippi.
- History and cultureWhy Ishpeming is called the birthplace of organized skiingThe title does not mean Americans first put on skis here. It points to a 1905 meeting that created a national ski association.
- History and cultureBig Gus is Ishpeming's Guinness-record chainsawGuinness World Records lists Big Gus as the largest chainsaw: a 22-foot-11-inch working machine built in Michigan and displayed in Ishpeming.
- History and cultureStannard Rock: The Loneliest Lighthouse in AmericaTwenty-four miles out in open Lake Superior with no land in sight, America's most isolated lighthouse — built against brutal odds, and now a lonely climate-research station.
- History and cultureThat Time the Upper Peninsula Tried to Become the 51st StateMore than once, Michigan's Upper Peninsula tried to secede and become a 51st state called 'Superior' — coming closest in the 1960s and '70s.
- History and cultureCudighi: The U.P.'s Sweet-Spiced SecretThe U.P.'s sweet-spiced Italian sausage sandwich — a Marquette County staple that Italy itself wouldn't recognize.
- History and cultureHow 'Yooper' Made It Into the DictionaryIt took one Yooper more than a decade of letters (and a few pasties) to get the word 'Yooper' into the dictionary.
- History and cultureThe Hand-Pie With a Crust You Weren't Supposed to EatThe U.P.'s beloved pasty came over with Cornish miners — and the famous story about its thick crust being a disposable handle is half legend.
- Home and propertyWhat to know about well and septic in Marquette CountyOutside the cities, much of Marquette County is on private well and septic. Michigan has no statewide septic code, and the county health department doesn't require an inspection purely because a property is sold -- though it checks the septic when you apply for a well permit, and some home loans ask for one.
- History and cultureThe iron range that built America (and still ships)Marquette County's iron range fed the nation's furnaces for 175 years — Negaunee and Ishpeming mined it, and the ore dock at Marquette still loads freighters today.
- Money and taxesBuying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxesMichigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxesIn Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not oneMost Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.