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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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HURLEY AREA
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Iron County (Wisconsin) Historical Museum. The splendid 1893 courthouse here is an attraction in itself. Three floors are crowded with local artifacts. Rooms are devoted to religion, logging, and mining in the area. The volunteer staff adds interesting anecdotes of Hurley's colorful, rowdy past ...
more
Iron County Farmers' Market. The area's largest farmers' market includes maple syrup and crafts along with locally-grown produce ...
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Little Finland. At this homey Finnish-American cultural center and museum, friendly tour guides share experiences of Finnish immigrants. ...
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Wisconsin Travel Information Center. Run by the state of Wisconsin's history agency, this center offers a lot more than travel info. It's an impressive mini-museum, with a focus here on the region's mining past ...
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Gogebic Range Wisconsin wayside. A picnic area with a beautiful vista of surrounding hills ...
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Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. This dramatic comples offers information and exhibits about this region's natural world and human history. There's a boardwalk trail through a cedar and black ash wetlands and a 5th-floor observation deck with panoramic views of Lake Superior ...
more
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Iron County (Wisconsin) Historical Museum
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Except for a big wine vat, a back bar, and a few other items, Hurley's rough, raw past seems remote and subdued here. Three floors of museum displays fill this splendid 1893 Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse, a real landmark with a tall tower and illuminated clock. The courtroom is a visitor highlight.
With so much space, this has definitely become a community attic kind of museum well suited to explorers and rainy days. There's a logging room, a religion room, a mining room with an oversize display on the nearby Montreal Mine, a uniform room, the old back bar, antique clothing, a barbershop, a schoolroom - and that's just the top floor! (To learn more about the planned company town of Montreal, read about it as a Hurley-area point of interest.)
Volunteers disavow firsthand experience with Hurley when it was a wide-open town. "We're just transplants," said one. But it turned out she has been here since 1937 and had baby-sat for prostitutes' kids as a teen. (They were quite well behaved.) Her husband remembers "how [the prostitutes] used to roll lumberjacks and take all their money after they got them drunk." Most volunteers have old local roots and can tell some good stories to visitors who ask questions.
The first-floor photo gallery displays many photographs of landscapes and everyday life by Emma Sackett, a pioneering photographer active just after 1900. Many people know her work as part of the Wisconsin story presented in the state historical museum in Madison.
The Iron County Museum is largely supported by sales of rag rugs, a folk craft especially associated with thrifty Finns. Iron County has lots of Finlanders! Visitors can see rag rugs woven here on four large, handcrafted looms. Rugs can be ordered, specifying color, end stripes, etc., or you can have your own old clothes woven into rugs, achieving a functional memento and exercising maximum artistic control. One widow had her late husband's clothes turned into rugs for their children. The mother of the groom gave her daughter-in-law a rug made of her new husband's boyhood clothes, saying, "I've washed them for years; now you can wash them!" Pay by the inch: 50¢ for polyester, 55¢ for denim and corduroy on the 27" loom. Ask for prices with wool, chenille, and on the 31" loom.
303 Iron at Third Ave. Iron intersects U.S. 2 two blocks south of W-77 on the south side of downtown. (715) 561-2244. Open year-round, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat, except for holidays. Donations appreciated. $25 motorcoach fee includes a guided tour. Wheelchair access: call. By arrangement, chairs can come in the back door and see the first floor.
Return to Hurley Area
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