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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA
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JUST OUT!
A new edition of Hunts' Mapguide to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Over 300 entries, all conveniently located on maps and chosen because we think they are the coolest things to do in the U.P. (No ad tie-ins!) Great choices for restaurants, hikes, shops, adventures, museums, boat trips, waterfalls, vistas, road trips, and much more!
To learn more click UP MAP GUIDE
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HOUGHTON
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Downtown Houghton. Shops, eateries, historic saloons, and a brewpub line Shelden Ave., with its handsome sandstone buildings and a dramatic location a block uphill from the Portage Waterway path and Bridgeview Park. ...
more
Houghton Waterfront Path and Park. Along a 4 1/2 mile paved path are fishing platforms, kayak access, the new library with beautiful views, and Dee Stadium, home of a huge summer history display and a mini-museum about Houghton's pioneering hockey history. ...
more
Keweenaw Star Keweenaw Waterway cruises. Take a 2 1/2 evening cruise, heading either north to Lake Superior or south to Keweenaw Bay on this 110-foot ...
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Nara Nature Park and Houghton-Chassell bike trail. A mile-long boardwalk with fishing benches is a highlight of this 10-mile-long path past shops and through wetlands ...
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Seaman Mineral Museum. One of the country's finest collections of U.P., Michigan, and world-wide minerals, artfully displayed and interpreted by professional geologists. ...
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USDA Forest Service Rhizotron. Through large underground windows see the root systems and insects of northern forest ...
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Michigan Technological University. One of the country's major technological universities provides a dramatic entryway to Hougton and lots of exceptional winter activities. Ice sculptures for the MTU Winter Carnival are worth a trip! ...
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MTU Archives/Copper Country Historical Collection. Lots of interesting old photos and loads of historical documents from a fascinating region ...
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Keweenaw Gem & Gift. Gemologist and geologist owners provide expert perspective on Copper Country rockhounding, agates, copper, greenstones, datolite, and more. ...
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MTU Archives/Copper Country Historical Collection
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This research subunit of the Van Pelt Library is first and foremost a facility for scholarly research, but it's also a treasure trove for history-minded visitors and researchers of many kinds. The Archives moved to a roomier new facility in the basement of the new Opie library addition.
Summer is its busiest season, because of the legions of people with Copper Country roots researching their family histories through immigration records, Polk directories, histories of local communities, newspaper microfilms, employment records of the area's three largest mining companies (Quincy, Calumet & Hecla, and Copper Range), and more.
Property owners enjoy tracking down information about their places and photos of the vicinity. Also of special interest is the map collection. Railroad history is another attraction for amateur historians. As the official repository for state archives of the western Upper Peninsula, the Archives also houses occasional official records donated from a much wider area.
Cutbacks in state funds have reduced staffing levels, but public hours are at least from noon-5:00 p.m. weekdays. Archivist Erik Nordberg and staff remain, as always, remarkably obliging to the general public.
The Archives has created two remarkable online resources to serve distant users and to reduce some of the wear and tear on the collections. The "Keweenaw Digital Archives," a searchable web-based image server, includes over 2,000 images from the archives, with more in the future. It's at digarch.lib.mtu.edu. Photographs or digital files can be ordered from historic photos, both from the online archive and from the entire collection, for a reasonable cost (with some use restrictions).
Secondly, "An Interior Ellis Island" is a fascinating, rather detailed look at immigrants and ethnicity in Michigan's Copper Country, with multi-page essays and some photos about the Chinese, Cornish, Croatians, Finns, French-Canadians, Germans, Irish, Italians, Native Americans, Poles, and Slovenes (ethnicity.lib.mtu.edu).
Before visiting the actual Archives, it's best to read online about "using the archives" to save the limited time of archives staff people.
Visit the online guide to the collections at www.lib.mtu.edu , then choose "archives."
On the Archives site, "about the collections" includes descriptive essays on subjects such as a short, clear history of the Quincy Mining Company, for instance, and a description of the lives and diaries of Daniel Brockway and his wife, true pioneers of the Keweenaw. The "online exhibits" include an interesting article on the Bosch Brewing Company of Lake Linden. (—March, 2008)¯/i>
From U.S. 41, look for the two-story glass bay window of the new addition to the Van Pelt Library in the center of campus. Metered parking is between the library and the highway, also by the MUB student union. Free summer parking by the Rozsa Center at east edge of campus. The library entrance faces the pedestrian campus, not the parking. (906) 487-2505. Hours: Mon 10-5, Tues 12-5, Wed 12-8 (12-5 break weeks), Thurs 12-5, Fri 10-5 (10-4 in summer). Wheelchair accessible.
Return to Houghton
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