Amasa Historical Museum

08/12/2026

More Annual Newsletters Now at UPLINK

UPLINK is a free Northern Michigan University-hosted website whose membership of Upper Peninsula historical organizations includes the Amasa Historical Society/Museum.

Below is shortcut to newsletter collection (2024, 2025, and 2026). More past issues will be coming.

AHS Newsletters and Donation Form
https://uplink.nmu.edu/node/162229

You’ll be prompted to prove you're a human by choosing pictures associated with a specified object. Due to limitations of the UPLINK PDF viewer, we recommend downloading the file to be viewed.

If the link fails, try typing the following address into your browser’s address bar to reach UPLINK’s main page, then navigate to our organization.

https://uplink.nmu.edu

08/08/2026

Children of Amasa Pioneers

About 120 years ago, these Sunday School Summer School students posed with serious expressions for this photo with their teacher, I presume. I’m not sure of the location or the church involved. I recognize several names of Amasa residents, one being Elma Maki (who married Victor Peltonen), 1903-2003.

The note below the names reads “DON’T KNOW IF THESE NAMES GO WITH THIS PICTURE.” However, the count of names and order of sexes for the first three rows and the overall count of names (45) seem to match. In my opinion, the names were copied from another source subsequent to when the names were first written down.

The package of photos including this one came from the Viitala family through John Madsen, a nephew of Art Hillson. (Art’s aunt Emma Hillson married Eli Viitala).

If anyone has any more information as to the teacher (possibly Antti Imonen) or the church involved, please share them in the comments. Follow us at Amasa Historical Museum.

08/08/2026

Children of Amasa Pioneers

About 120 years ago, these Sunday School Summer School students posed with serious expressions for this photo with their teacher, I presume. I’m not sure of the location or the church involved. I recognize several names of Amasa residents, one being Elma Maki (who married Victor Peltonen), 1903-2003.

The note below the names reads “DON’T KNOW IF THESE NAMES GO WITH THIS PICTURE.” However, the count of names and order of sexes for the first three rows and the overall count of names (45) seem to match. In my opinion, the names were copied from another source subsequent to when the names were first written down.

The package of photos including this one came from the Viitala family through John Madsen, a nephew of Art Hillson. (Art’s aunt Emma Hillson married Eli Viitala).

If anyone has any more information as to the teacher (possibly Antti Imonen) or the church involved, please share them in the comments. Follow us at Amasa Historical Museum.

07/20/2026

Thanks to the donors, volunteers, musicians, and attendees that made the 2026 Amasa Historical Museum season possible and an enjoyable time!

As always, we are available to provide tours or access to those interested in the museum’s displays and research materials.

07/11/2026

06/02/2026

Thanks to Bruce of Premo’s Greenhouse for providing petunias and marigolds (in Amasa school colors) to fill our museum planters. Here’s a close-up picture plus an AI rendering reminiscent of Amasa artist Art Korpi.

05/23/2026

UPLINK Offers New Way to View Amasa’s Past

UPLINK is a free Northern Michigan University-hosted website whose membership of Upper Peninsula historical organizations now includes the Amasa Historical Society/Museum! You can visit our organization by typing uplink.nmu.edu into a web browser’s address bar and choosing us from among the nearly three dozen Consortium Members listed.

First, you’ll be prompted to prove you're a human by choosing pictures associated with a specified object. Once you pass the challenge, you’ll find links to our latest newsletter and our donation/membership/brick-order fundraiser form. We plan to post other documents and images there, going forward. Follow our Facebook posts at Amasa Historical Museum for announcements of new content. Let us know that you enjoy and support this way of delivering Amasa content, to justify the annual fee.

And if you receive our physical newsletter mailing, let us know if you’d prefer to use this online method of delivery, to help us save printing costs and save copies for visitors.

Here’s the direct shortcut to our UPLINK organization page, with a link to our newsletter collection (past issues will be coming).

AHS main UPLINK page
https://uplink.nmu.edu/node/162229

Donation form
https://uplink.nmu.edu/node/162927

2026 AHS Newsletter
https://uplink.nmu.edu/node/162230

05/18/2026

Memorial Day at the Amasa Historical Museum

After services at the Hematite Cemetery, come join us Memorial Day, Monday May 25 about 10 AM, for our annual open house. Volunteers will be serving brats, hotdogs, chips, water, pop, and snow cones at the museum, which will be open for tours. Reflect on and appreciate Amasa veterans by viewing our wood-crafted roster of those who served and by visiting our veteran-curated display upstairs.

Ticket sales for the 4th of July Raffle Drawing will begin. Thanks to the generous contributions of local businesses and individuals, the raffle provides a substantial benefit to the museum.

Offering original music will be returning favorites Polecat Panic, Jake and Danica Soha, from just down the road.

11/11/2025

Korean War veterans remembered

More than 70 years after the Korean War ended, we recognize those who served during that era, whose living ranks were estimated to be 1 million in 2020. With the demographic decline of these currently 90+ year old veterans (perhaps as few as 650,000 today) that number is projected to be fewer than 200,000 by 2030.

Roy Koski (b.1938-d.2005) of Amasa was one such Korean War veteran. He was the driving force behind the Amasa Centennial history book (1891-1991). I borrow from this author’s words and research in the remainder of this post. [My comments are in brackets. Thanks to all veterans for their service and sacrifice.]
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“Between June 25, 1950, and July 27, 1953, there were 33,629 American battle deaths and 103,284 wounded non-mortally. Many of the commissioned officers of World War II were recalled into service during the war and two National Guard infantry divisions served in Korea.

“The young soldiers who fought the Korean War had been children during the depression and teenagers during World War II. The average age of the combat soldier was 22, but they were mature beyond their years and tough and well disciplined.

“Men in the service during the Korean War [presumably all from the Amasa area] were:
Raymond Alatalo
Earl Anderson
Marco Buzachero
Norman Cornelia
Wilbert Dahlgren
John Dallafior
John Gerry
Don Gill
Jack Gill
Rueben Hansen Sr.
John Hanttula
Calvin Heimerl
Morris Heimerl
Warren Hendrickson
William Hill
Jack Holm
Albert Jacobson
Mickey Kangas
Jack Kenney
George Ketola
Reino Ketola
Roy Koski
Robert Kreisch
James Larson
Richard Lehmann
Andrew Makus
Gerald Odlund
Roy Pagel
William Peryam
Eli Rossi
Arthur Syrjala
Gene Tucker

“The Korean Was is called the “Forgotten War”…The Korean War has been over for 38 years [as of the time of Koski’s writing] and hopefully the planned Korean War Memorial will soon be built.” [It was dedicated in 1995.]

Image: Sgt. Roy Koski, December 1951