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EAGLE HARBOR
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Eagle Harbor Lighthouse and Museums. This picturesque 1871 lighthouse, furnished circa 1910, is a photographers' favorite. Its rocky perch overlooks Eagle Harbor. A Lake Superior overlook is adjacent. Keweenaw Historical Society museums cover commercial fishing, mining and surveying, early Copper Harbor history, and ships and shipwrecks. ...
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Rathbone School House. The 1850s schoolhouse/birthplace of the Knights of Pythias secret fraternal order is a colorful Keweenaw Historical Society museum. ...
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M-26 from Eagle Harbor to Copper Harbor. Two charming CCC-era rustic parks, agate beaches, a woodland waterfall, and a nature trail with tough lichens and plants punctuate this dramatic 14-mile stretch of M-26. It features panoramic views of Superior and its rocky shoreline. ...
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Eagle Harbor Lighthouse and Museums
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 | | Dr. Ching-Kuang Shene, Michigan Technological University | This exceptionally picturesque and much photographed brick lighthouse surveys the harbor from its rocky perch. Built in 1871, the keeper's dwelling is realistically furnished as it might have been in the 1930s by the Keweenaw County Historical Society (on the web at a newsy website, www.up.net/~ghite.kchs.htm).
The society has purchased the light station complex here from the Coast Guard. It has developed several specialized museums in its various buildings. In 1999 a small commercial fishing museum was created in the assistant keeper's quarters next door.
One building by the parking area houses the surveying, smelting, and mining museum. It includes a mineral collection, mining history, material on Daniel Brockway and the early days of Copper Harbor, and a fine exhibit on the Keweenaw's prehistoric copper culture.
A separate maritime museum building covers shipwrecks in great detail. A patient, history-minded person could spend hours on a rainy day taking this all in. Many exhibits have signs that are dense reading, too much for casual visitors. But the museum is the best single place in the Keweenaw to assemble an overview of the area's history.
Outside are picnic tables on a sunny, rocky promontory. An overlook platform has a grand view of the rocks and, looking out into Lake Superior, of passing freighters as well.
 | | The Keweenaw Historical Society's maritime museum displays the kind of survival suit sailors on Lake Superior freighters are required to have on hand. Fall into Superior without one in late fall or early spring, your chances of survival are low. |
At the west shore of the harbor. Follow signs from M-26 to lighthouse/museum. Summer phone: (906) 289-4990. Open daily, mid-June thru Sept, noon-5. About $1/person. Lighthouse is not handicap-accessible. Mining and maritime museums are.
The information above is being updated. The revised entries will be available by the middle of July, 2005, if not earlier. So be sure to check to get current prices and hours.
Return to Eagle Harbor
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