Marquette Regional History Center

10/14/2026

10/13/2026

THIS SATURDAY - 14th Annual Archaeology Fair ! 🤩
October 17, 11:00am-3:00pm at the Marquette Regional History Center.

Join the celebration of archaeology and the thrill of discovery. Activities and hands-on learning for all ages will be set up throughout the building and outdoors. Multiple booths feature various displays.

Don't miss the 1:00pm presentation by Dr. LouAnn Wurst, "Class, Labor and Workers' Experience in CCI's Cordwood Lumber Camps" where she'll share her research on the Coalwood cord-wood chopper’s sites located in the Hiawatha National Forest. Research from CCI’s payroll records adds new insights into the data recovered from archaeological excavations at four camps dating from 1900-1920, telling the story of the cordwood choppers and their families’ everyday life in the northern forest.

Entry fee is general museum admission. Sponsor level and above museum members enter free.
906-226-3571 | www.marquettehistory.org
Archaeological Institute of America

10/12/2026

Happy Indigenous People’s Day!

Quillwork is thought to be the oldest type of embroidery in North America. However, by the Mid-1800s beadwork was more commonly used than quillwork.

Native people in North America used beads made of shells, stones, bone, and metal. They traded extensively with one another for these materials. With the European fur trade came glass beads made in Venice and Czechoslovakia which were traded with native people across North America for furs and other materials.

Beads were sewn onto cloth, birch bark, and leather and woven into bands. Elaborate bandolier bags were worn as a symbol of pride.

Known as Manidoominens in Ojibwe, seed beads are known as Gifts of the Spirit, or simply Spirit Seeds.

Woodland tribes such as the Ojibwe are known for their large floral motifs which are bead applique. Beads are strung onto thread and stitched. The shapes are stitched first, then the background is filled in.

Many North American tribes sharing regions of the continent with the porcupine produced quillwork. Quillwork is done on leather or birch bark and is used as an embellishment on medicine bags, jewelry, moccasins, and birch bark baskets and boxes.

Techniques are varied: folding, twisting, wrapping, plaiting, sewing, and simple stringing. Usually the quill is flattened first, either with a hand tool or traditionally by the artist running it through her teeth. Quills are left their natural color or dyed before applying.

Sometimes patterns were recorded on birch bark or rawhide. Some techniques require sewing the quills down with thread, traditionally made of animal sinew. Stitches include parallel or band technique, zig zag, and plaiting.

Quillwork on birch bark like these examples mainly uses a staple like stitch. Two holes are made with an awl and then the quill is threaded through both. Both ends are folded to secure it in place. After the quillwork is done, a birch bark lining is added to protect the back or inside of the object.

Anishinaabe artists today continue to make quilled and beaded objects with both traditional and modern designs.

From MRHC special exhibits - Changing Hands: A Heritage Crafts Exhibit, 2019

10/10/2026

We are just ONE WEEK away from the 14th Annual Archaeology Fair ! 🤩
Saturday, October 17, 11:00am-3:00pm at the Marquette Regional History Center.

🙌 Hands on learning
⚒️ Take home goodies
💡 1:00pm presentation by Dr. LouAnn Wurst, "Class, Labor and Workers' Experience in CCI's Cordwood Lumber Camps" - Hear her research on the Coalwood cord-wood chopper’s sites located in the Hiawatha National Forest. Research from CCI’s payroll records adds new insights into the data recovered from archaeological excavations at four camps dating from 1900-1920, telling the story of the cordwood choppers and their families’ everyday life in the northern forest.

Join the celebration of archaeology and the thrill of discovery. Activities and hands-on learning for all ages will be set up throughout the building and outdoors. Multiple booths feature various displays.

Entry fee is general museum admission. Sponsor level and above museum members enter free.
906-226-3571 | www.marquettehistory.org
Archaeological Institute of America

10/09/2026

10/09/2026

Humanoid Figure, CCI Coalwood Site
Dr. LouAnn Wurst

This humanoid figure, made of riveted and bent metal straps, was found in the cellar of a house that was occupied by a cordwood chopper and his family at the Coalwood Site near Munising in the Hiawatha National Forest. The cellar was filled with refuse that accumulated after the house was moved, likely by neighboring residents who stayed in camp a bit longer before it was finally closed in 1912. It is not known what the metal was originally part of—some have suggested an old mole trap—but there is no doubt that it was intentionally formed.

What do you think it was?

Dr. Wurst will present "Class, Labor and Workers' Experience in CCI's Cordwood Lumber Camps" on Saturday, October 17, at 1:00, during the MRHC's 14th Annual Archaeology Fair.

Regular museum admission cost to enter on this day includes Dr. Wurst's program, and access to the booths, activities and galleries.

Archaeological Institute of America

10/09/2026

Tonight's dome lights are in honor of Patricia Scullin "Pat" Gruber, who passed away on October 3, 2026. Pat was a longtime supporter and dear friend of the Marquette Regional History Center. She is pictured participating in the Archaeology Fair with the Society for Creative Anachronism and her daughter, Beth (MRHC Research Librarian).

We are keeping Beth and her family in our thoughts.
With Love, the MRHC Staff ❤️

10/08/2026

In 2003, Maxine Honkala and Sharon Richards donated the complete collection of interviews, tape recordings, videos, transcripts and journals from the 17-year-long “Red Dust” oral history project to the NMU Archives. They’ve been completely digitized and are available on the UPLINK website.

The 1985 edition of the Red Dust journal features three stories of the Barnes-Hecker Mine disaster, which occurred on November 3, 1926. Fifty-one men lost their lives; forty-one of them are still buried at the site of the cave-in.

This October, in honor of this solemn 100th anniversary, the History Center will meet for the UP History Book Club on October 14 at 6:30pm to discuss “Enduring Legacies: People of the 1926 Barnes-Hecker Mine Disaster” by Mary Tippett.

Then on October 21 at 6:30pm, Jim Paquette will present on the Barnes-Hecker Mine disaster where uncovered evidence and documented facts through his research will shed the light of truth that the Barnes-Hecker disaster victims and their families have always deserved.

10/07/2026

DID YOU KNOW ‼️ on Wednesdays, The Mining Journal features a history article written by MRHC staff or volunteers? Here’s an excerpt from today’s piece, “Moving on Up, Elevators in the U.P.” by Ann Hilton Fisher:

“…Elevators, in the form of hoists and skips, have also always been an essential part of underground mining in the U.P. and elsewhere. The Quincy Hoist in Hancock and the headframe at the Cliffs Shaft Mining Museum in Ishpeming are both reminders of the technology needed to get miners below ground and ore back up. Grain elevators were also widely used on the Great Lakes, including one at the Spear Dock in Marquette as early as 1871. Some homes also had dumbwaiters—manually powered small elevators…

But passenger elevators did not start to become common in residential or commercial buildings until after Elisha Otis’s invention of the safety elevator in 1853. Other inventions quickly followed, including ones that prevented doors from being opened between floors. By the 1870s, department stores, hotels, and commercial buildings in New York and London began installing steam-powered elevators.

Elevators were considered quite a novelty. Stories about the 1873 World’s Fair in Chicago mentioned them. The Mining Journal regularly ran ads for the Michigan Hotel in Detroit “the first hotel in Michigan with a passenger elevator.” Another regular advertiser was the London, Ontario, Hellmuth College “for the education of young ladies” featuring a gymnasium, riding school, and passenger elevator.

It is believed that the first passenger elevator in Marquette was installed by Alfred Swineford in the house he built at 424 Cedar Street in 1882. Although the Longyear family lived in that house while their own home was being built a block away, [they] did not include an elevator into their new home, perhaps because they had heard the story--widely shared but never verified--that a servant had fallen into the elevator shaft at the Swineford house and been injured.

The first passenger elevator in a commercial building in Marquette was in the seven-story Savings Bank Building, still standing at the corner of Washington and Front…”

See The Mining Journal to finish reading.