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MENOMINEE AND MARINETTE
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Downtown Menominee on Green Bay. Menominee's historic waterfront downtown is a fine place to stroll and enjoy the architecture, specialty shops, antique mall, cafe, and park. ...
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Menominee County Historical Museum. See an animated miniature 1929 circus, old Menominee Indian dugout canoes, logging artifacts ...
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North Pier and Lighthouse; Tourist Park beach. A north pier light at the harbor entrance has guided boats to the Menominee River since 1877. There are picnic tables and a public beach here ...
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Michigan Welcome Center. This vintage log visitor information center for Michigan has many charming architectural details from 1938.
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Red Arrow Park. At the base of a long sandbar extending a mile out into the bay is this outstanding park, with beach, picnic area, playground, and a path to the protected bay where waterfowl nest ...
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Walking tour of downtown Marinette. See an island park, logging museum, the impressive homes of 19th-century lumber barons overlooking the big river ...
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Menekaunee taverns. This district across the river in Wisconsin was originally a squatters' village for millworkers, loggers, and fishermen. Today the old taverns here are a draw for people who want authentic, unfussed-over local color ...
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Henes Park. A 50-acre point extending out into Green Bay with wooded nature paths, a beach, fine views of the bay, a picturesque pond, and picnic area ...
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DeYoung Family Zoo. See endangered, often rescued big cats: leopards, tigers, lions, cougars, also wolves and bears in large fenced areas with ponds, and reptiles inside. Kids can feed, pet, and be photographed with some animals. ...
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Menekaunee taverns
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If you continue south on First Street from downtown Menominee, you'll cross the Menominee River and an island in it. You'll then be in Wisconsin. First Street becomes Ogden. On the south bank is the workers' neighborhood of Menekaunee (pronounced "MEN-uh-CAW-knee"), known for its neighborhood taverns.
Menekaunee, now part of Marinette, originated as a squatters' village. Millworkers, loggers, and fishermen built small houses on the shavings and sand that accumulated behind the breakwater built at the river's mouth by a lumber company. These squatters gained title to the land in a famous turn-of-the-century court case, in which the lumber company failed to reclaim its land.
Today enclosed fishing boats, working remnants of Marinette's once-large fleet, tie up at a river slip near here. (Mothballed trawlers are by the bridge approach on the Menominee side.)
Menekaunee's taverns, mostly on Hosmer Street, remain a draw for people who want authentic, unfussed-over local color. Young people home on vacation, for instance, are apt to join the foundry workers, commercial fishermen, retirees, and occasional salesmen and merchant sailors who gather at HELEN'S EDGEWATER INN at 16 Hosmer, east of Ogden (715-735-9481). It's within view of the water. Outsiders are welcome at this friendly bar, which serves only beverages, no food. It's the kind of place where customers give rides to Canadian sailors waiting while pig iron is being unloaded for the nearby Waupaca foundry. That way the sailors can get haircuts and buy sundries. The area's best fish fry, says one innkeeper, is at MARINE HOUSE TAVERN at 101 Water at First Street (715-732-2115). The pan-fried walleye is "to die for," she says. Come early, by 5 p.m., to avoid big-time smoke.
Return to Menominee and Marinette
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