New Book Highlights U.P.’s Most Prominent Architect Fred Charlton is not a household name in the U.P. or even in Marquette where he lived, yet he deserves to be as well known as Peter White, John M. Longyear, Louis G. Kaufman, and many other notable U.P. figures. Perhaps more than…
Review by Tyler Tichelaar In Digging Up the Truth and Other Big Bay Stories, Faye Bowers, a native of Big Bay, Michigan and longtime professional journalist, shares stories informed by her quest to set straight the historical record. The result is a series of stories that shed light into some…
Review by Mack Hassler Deborah K. Frontiera is a major voice in the writing of a UP literature, and I have been very interested in most of her work across several genres. She keeps trying new things. But history is a hard genre to get right. History is all we…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera This short volume, Shipwreked and Rescued, is loaded with historic photographs, maps and charts, Larry Jorgenson presents the story of one of the more famous shipwrecks on Lake Superior, the City of Bangor and its cargo of Chrysler cars. The author begins with a brief…
Across the history of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the industrial age, there have only been a handful of major employers in the private sector with more than 500 employees. We are of course drawn to the big mining concerns such as Calumet & Hecla’s copper and Cleveland Cliffs Empire Mine…
Review by Sharon Brunner Mikel B. Classen’s book True Tales: The Forgotten History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula provides historical information most of us do not know about or have forgotten. The Upper Peninsula (U.P.), a rugged, uncharted wilderness, haunted and delighted many through lawlessness, natural and man-made phenomenon. The man-made…
Review by Victor R. Volkman Allan Koski is that rare combination of an eloquent historian, talented engineer, and a storyteller with a penchant for seeing the big picture. Because I thoroughly enjoyed Koski’s Another Time, Another Place: World War II in the Pacific 1941-1944, which details the exploits of his…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera In U.P. Colony, Phil Belffy asked himself why Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, was doing so much better economically than Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, some thirty-plus years ago and ended up writing his master’s thesis on that topic. His search for answers led him to compare…
Depot Rediscovers a Forgotten Landmark of Keweenaw’s Heritage Review by Victor R. Volkman One of the fondest memories I have of my father was our train watching visits to the huge and desolate industrial railyards of Detroit. A few times, in the late 1960s, we made special trips to see…
Marquette County’s Medical History Explored Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar The Macabre to the Mundane: Death, Life, and Medicine in Marquette County Michigan during the Early 1900’s—with Covid 2020 Updates by John Parlin, M.D., reminds me of the fat old medical books my grandmother used to own that looked like…
Eino Koski’s Legacy Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman Allan Koski’s book Another Time, Another Place is a heartfelt and compelling memoir about his father Eino Koski’s contribution to the Pacific theatre in World War II. Although Eino passed away in 2009, his son Allan managed to complete the manuscript with…
Kawbawgam Finally Tells the True Tale of Marquette’s Most Famous Chief Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man by Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the first woke history of Native Americans in Upper Michigan that I have read. I’ll go so far as to presume…
Wildlife Photography was Born in the U.P. EDITORS NOTE: George Shiras III always referred to himself as George Shiras 3d in all matters so that convention is used here. Outside of Marquette County, there may be few people who understand the full legacy of George Shiras 3d and his contributions…
Could a Small Town in the U.P. be the Origin of the World’s Premier Winter Sport? Dr. William Sproule, a recently retired professor of civil and environmental engineering from Michigan Tech University, wrote the new book Houghton: The Birthplace of Professional Hockey with the hopes of cementing the Keewenaw’s crucial…
