Today’s Flashback Friday honors one of our most beloved and practical local landmarks, the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, which opened to traffic on this day in 1959. The night before the Governor of Michigan was to christen the bridge, many families in Houghton and Hancock were awakened by the sound of a ship’s horn. A . . .
On behalf of the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, a department of Michigan Tech’s Van Pelt and Opie Library, we hope you will help us welcome the newest member of the team, Kimberly McMullan. Kimberly is our newest Library Assistant, a position which supports the Archives with excellent customer service, patron . . .
Our Flashback Friday photo this week takes us to Christmastime in Calumet in 1958. The Calumet Theater must have been quite the site on December 9, 1958 with the lobby overflowing with toys and roughly 600 children in attendance for a charitable celebration. Sponsored by the Merchants and Miners Bank, the U.P. Power Co., the . . .
Some ghost towns refuse to give up the ghost. Central Mine is one of them. Winona is another. In September 1974, the Daily Mining Gazette wrote that “the motorist moving between Houghton and Ontonagon seldom turns to the right to see what is left of the community.” This has not changed in forty-five years: most . . .
Happy Flashback Friday, Copper Country! Can you believe we’re heading into the fall break and sliding into December? Okay, maybe “sliding” is a bad term after during this awkward transition from fall to true Yooper winter. There’s certainly been a lot of feelings shared around town about the rain, sleet, and snow; not to forget . . .
“The lands of the Central Mining Company… are bounded on the north by the Copper Falls location, on the east and south by the North Western, and on the west by the Winthrop location, and are four and one half miles from Eagle Harbor… These lands are well timbered with pine and sugar-maple, and have . . .
The Michigan Oral History Association is currently seeking proposals for the MOHA 2020 Conference. We welcome proposals for presentations, sessions and papers on oral history projects: Focused on Michigan, and/or Led by Michigan-based scholars Research projects (issues analyzed with oral history methods and interviews) Collections of oral histories focusing on a particular time period/community/group The . . .
Today’s Flashback Friday is a quick glimpse back to the Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul and Pacific railroad station in Ontonagon. Once the terminus of the line’s famed Chippewa passenger route, the depot has performed only freight service for several years. The Chippewa now terminates its Chicago-Milwaukee and northern Michigan service at Channing. The first photograph . . .
Happy Flashback Friday! We hope that you all had a howling good time at the Haunted Mine tour put on by students at Michigan Tech and hosted by the Quincy Mine Hoist Association! Undoubtedly, the deep, dark recesses of a mine like Quincy is the perfect backdrop for a fright fest and a great opportunity . . .
“Donate,” Reimund Holzhey said. “I’m collecting.” He raised a revolver in each hand and cocked them at the stagecoach. It was late August 1889 in Gogebic County, and although the coach had been traveling along the road from Lake Gogebic, cool breezes were hardly guaranteed. If the four stagecoach passengers had not already been sweating, . . .