Discover Marquette Maritime Museum

Discover Marquette’s Maritime Museum where history meets fun!

View of the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. tours available through the Marquette Maritime Museum. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

Entrance of the Marquette Maritime Museum. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

Overlooking beautiful Lake Superior and half way between the lower and upper harbor is an old stone building that looks like it came out of the earliest days of Marquette’s history. This picturesque red building, at one time, served as the city’s waterworks building, but it has since taken on a new and unique status. The old building was turned into the Marquette Maritime Museum in 1982 and now provides an enlightening and exciting experience for guests of all ages. Hosting a variety of exhibits on shipwrecks, commercial fishing, and lighthouse Fresnel lenses the museum’s staff is not only knowledgeable about Marquette’s maritime history, but they also love to share stories, and answer questions.

Maritime display inside of the Marquette Maritime Museum. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

The Museum also offers a child friendly environment for all ages. With toy chests, games, scavenger hunts and an arts and crafts station, children will be entertained for hours at a time and begging to visit again. A chest of dress-up clothes will stir a child’s imagination, and the staff, big kids themselves, love to play too! Little ones’ artworks can be seen hanging on the walls and there is also an art contest. At the end of the season the staff chooses their favorite artworks according to age group to proudly display and the young artist gets a prize too! Don’t worry if you don’t live in the area, the museum will gladly mail the prize to you.

View from the end of the catwalk at the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

For an extra treat, the museum leads narrated tours to the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. The lighthouse, a two story, red brick building that can be seen from Lake Shore Boulevard, is a functioning lighthouse that sits on Coast Guard property. It is inaccessible except through the Marquette Maritime Museum’s tours. On the way out, your guide will lead you past the old Life-Saving Station where Captain Henry J. Cleary and his eight Storm Warriors once patrolled Marquette harbor and performed drills and maneuvers on the water with one of the first motorized lifeboats.

Maritime equipment inside the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

At the lighthouse, your guide will tell you when and how the lighthouse was built as well as some of the people who lived there. In the summer, you will see, creeping of the side of the hill and covering the railing, tall, brilliantly purple, lilacs, and thimbleberries and lilies grow around the base. Then, inside, are exhibits detailing of the light keepers and their families, the coast guard, and the freighters that ship iron ore from Marquette’s top loading docks.

Navigation compass on display at the Marquette Maritime Museum. (Marqettemagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

You will also walk out onto the catwalk where you will see the remains of the fog house where the keepers used to brave thrashing waves and winds in order to warn freighters of dangerous weather conditions. The lighthouse catwalk is the only place in Marquette where you can see both the Upper and Lower Harbors. You will also be able to see Presque Isle, and, if you are there at the right time, you will see a freighter docked and loading with iron ore. Call the museum ahead of time and ask them for the freighter schedule!

Carrie Fries, Museum Director takes the helm of a real ship’s wheel, one of the many interactive displays at the Marquette Maritime Museum. (MarquetteMagazine.com photo by Ron Caspi)

While you are at the lighthouse, pick up a pamphlet for the museum’s Paint the Lighthouse Red Campaign. Last summer, the Marquette Maritime Museum put a new roof on the lighthouse, but there is still more work to be done! There are repairs to be done on the interior of the second floor and the lighthouse’s once brilliant red color is fading to a less than brilliant pink. With your help, the lighthouse can be as good as new. Every dollar helps, and you can be part of the museum’s goal to preserve Marquette’s history both accurately and beautifully for generations to come.

The museum will be opening up for its summer season in mid-May.

For more information on the best ways to discover Marquette Maritime Museum and the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse, visit their website at mqtmaritimemuseum.com                              or call at (906) 226-2006.

The museum is located next to the Coast Guard Station at:
300 North Lakeshore Boulevard
Marquette, MI 49855

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by Tabbatha Quick

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