In October 2018 the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections launched its traveling exhibit, Becoming the Pride of the Upper Peninsula: The Formative Years of the Copper Range Railroad. The first installation took place in the Van Pelt and Opie Library from October 2018 – May 2019, then traveled the Upper Great . . .
Behind every family business are two tales: the story of the business and the story of the family. Thurner Bakery in Calumet offers one such example. This week’s Flashback Friday provides another intimate illustration by visiting the Krackerbarrel. Students at Michigan Tech in the 1960s and 1970s would have known the little store as well . . .
Today’s Flashback Friday celebrates local strawberries…and all the sweet delights they help us create. What better way to kickoff Strawberry Festival weekend! Strawberries have been an important part of the Chassell economy since the early 1920s. Strawberries became such an important part of the local economy that it was decided to recognize the local Growers . . .
‘Ruth Gibson Butler knew her own mind and had no qualms in expressing it. As a woman in the political sphere and someone passionate about the preservation of local history, she fit right in. Like many of the women profiled in prior blog posts–such as Lucena Brockway and her daughter Anna Brockway Gray–many of Ruth’s . . .
The history of Calumet is a history of fire. Each blaze in the village and its surroundings has been a tragedy, changing lives and claiming homes, businesses, gathering places, and houses of worship. The latest fire, which displaced dozens when it destroyed three buildings constructed between 1880 and 1900, is another part of a long . . .
Thurner Bakery was a family affair from the very beginning. At the start of its life in 1920, family businesses were hardly curiosities. Small storefronts neighbored Thurner’s all along Fifth Street in Calumet, many of them run with the assistance of a proprietor’s spouse, siblings, children, or grandchildren. By the time the bakery shut its . . .
Comfortably nestled in the shadow of the Quincy Mine–Old Reliable–Hancock became one of the Upper Peninsula’s preeminent towns and the Copper Country’s first city. Along its hillside and its two main thoroughfares, the commercial and artistic amenities of a large settlement sprang up: shops, taverns, performance halls. Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal churches, as . . .
A few weeks ago, Flashback Friday took a look at the first incarnation of the Keweenaw Central Railroad. This rail line filled the many needs of the Copper Country in its industrial heyday: it carried copper, albeit in smaller-than-anticipated volumes, and other local products south to be brought to market, and it ferried pleasure seekers . . .
Flashback Friday takes us back to a winter tradition oft forgotten; the annual ice harvest. In frozen waters across the Great Lakes region, the new year took commercial fishermen and local folks to the shoreline to harvest “ice cakes.” Townsfolk up and down the coasts of Lake Superior and inland lakes in the Upper Peninsula . . .
The Upper Peninsula Digital Network (UPLINK) project is currently seeking an archivist or related professional to serve as the Digital Project Manager for a term-funded project. This position is made possible with support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) Implementation Grant program. UPLINK is a collaborative administered by the Northern Michigan University . . .