The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is quite a drive from most larger metro areas like Detroit, Chicago or Minneapolis. The area has two commercial airports. The larger is in Marquette with commuter service from Detroit on Delta and Chicago on American airlines. The other is Houghton County Airport near Calumet in the Keweenaw Peninsula with service from Chicago on United Express. Both Marquette and the Houghton/Hancock area have plenty of chain motels. The area gets huge snowfalls during their long winters, and May to September is the time to visit as well as when most facilities are open.
In Marquette, the highlight is the old iron ore pier near downtown where the railcars would dump their ore into the hold of the iron ore lake carrier. There is a new, still active, pier west of town and if you happen to catch a train unloading it is an experience. 10 miles out of Marquette, off highway 41, is Ishpeming, where iron ore mining is centered. The Cliffs Shaft Museum is there and Cleveland Cliffs has an active mine, the Tilden, about 3 miles south which offers limited tours. The great Empire mine is no longer active.
Following Hwy 41 west and then north it is about a 2 hour drive to Houghton. The route goes through the L’Anse Indian Reservation which houses the village of Baraga and Bishop Baraga’s shrine. Houghton is home to Michigan Tech, a school long associated with mining technology and its library has a large collection of artifacts and papers. The highlight in Houghton is the bridge over the portage between Houghton and Hancock. It is a large double deck lift steel bridge dating to 1960. It was originally designed to carry rail on the lower deck and cars on the upper level. Just down the Portage is Dee stadium, the birthplace of professional hockey and for many years the home of the Michigan Tech Huskies. The Dee family originated in the Bunmahon area of Waterford and were successful businessmen in the area. William Bell Frue’s house is also in Houghton and a quick look across the portage is the remains of the old Quincy smelter.
Hancock, was where most Irish lived, and at one time had a large St Patrick’s Church and School but they were destroyed by fire in the 1930s. The Quincy Mine headframe, the Ryan School building and the old Ryan Store (now an Ace Hardware) are there as are a few street names (Ryan and Holland). The Finnish-American Heritage center is worth a visit.
Twenty minutes north is the town of Calumet which was the HQ for the great Calumet and Hecla Co. The whole old center of town is a National Park with many exhibits and artifacts of the mining era which effectively ended after WWI. The site of the Italian Hall tragedy of 1913 is nearby. Next door is the town of Laurium where George Gipp of Notre Dame fame grew up. Gipp is buried in the old Laurium Cemetery along with many of the Irish miners and their children. Towards the lake on the east of the Keweenaw is Lake Linden, where Calumet and Hecla had their concentrator and smelter. It is a pleasant lakeside village today.
About 40 miles south and west of Houghton off Hwy 45 in Ontonagon County is Irish Hollow Cemetery. Some of the earliest copper mines in the UP were in this area and they employed mostly Irish miners.
Irish Hollow Cemetery
Quincy Smelter
Iron Ore Loading Dock, Marquette
The Italian Hall Memorial Site
Calumet and Hecla Locomotive Snow Plow at National park in Calumet
