Marquette is a city in the American state of Michigan. The city
is the administrative seat of Marquette County. The US The
Census Bureau recorded a population of 20,629 as of the 2020
census. This makes Marquette the most populous city on the Upper
Peninsula (UP), the northern and sparsely populated part of
Michigan.
Marquette has been a major inland port on Lake
Superior since its inception and grew primarily through the
forest industry and ore mining. Marquette has been home to
Northern Michigan University since 1899. Marquette has been the
seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Marquette since 1937, with
the bishop seat at St. Peter Cathedral.
Presque Isle Park in Marquette was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted,
best known for his design of Central Park in New York. The city's
historic City Hall sits at the highest point on Washington Street and
was built in the Romanesque Revival style of locally sourced reddish
sandstone.
The county's courthouse, the Marquette County
Courthouse, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
(NRHP) in 1978. Marquette architects Charlton and Gilbert designed the
building in the Neoclassical style, and maintained it from 1902 to 1904
Build from locally mined sandstone. In 1913, former President Theodore
Roosevelt won a civil case for defamation against a newspaper editor in
this court. The sum awarded to him was six cents, the "price of a good
newspaper". Another case before the court inspired the novel Anatomy of
a Murder by John D. Voelker, which was filmed in 1959 under the title
Anatomy of a Murder. Portions of the Oscar-nominated film were filmed at
the Marquette County Courthouse.
Other structures listed on the
Nation Register of Historic Places include the 1895 Upper Peninsula
Brewing Company Building, Harlow Block and Call House, Longyear Building
and Yongyear Hall, City Hall and Marquette City Water Works, Harbor
Light Station, the Savings Bank Building and the State House of
Correction and Branch Prison.
The Superior Dome, NMU's sports
stadium, built in 1991, is the fourth largest geodesic dome in the world
with a diameter of 163 m.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Marquette has an area
of 50 km², of which 31 km² are land and 29 km² (= 41.09%) are bodies of
water used for water sports. The metropolitan area includes several
small islands, including Middle Island, Gull Island, Lover's Island,
Presque Isle Pt. Rocks, White Rocks, Ripley Rock and the Picnic Rocks in
Lake Superior. The Marquette Underwater Preserve is just offshore.
Marquette Mountain, used primarily by skiers, is located in the city
area. Trowbridge Park, in a non-municipal part of Marquette County, is
west and Marquette Township is northwest of the city.
US Highway
41 and Michigan State Route 28 overlap, entering the city from the west
and exiting southwest along the lakefront, where the routes separate. US
41 connects Marquette south to Chicago, while M-28 runs east to the
Canadian border at Sault Ste. Marie leads. Duluth is at the end of what
was once a continuation of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway;
these tracks are no longer in service from Marquette south-west.
Around Marquette there is little evidence of Native American
settlement prior to the arrival of European immigrants. The area lacks
wildlife and winters are harsh; there are also many rocks with traces of
ore, which the natives believe should attract thunderstorms. French
Jesuit explorer Jacques Marquette is said to have explored the area in
the 17th century, but there is no definitive evidence of this. In any
case, the French were the first European settlers here, the nearby Dead
River is referred to as the French Rivière de Morts on the oldest known
map.
The French had knowledge of copper ore deposits on the
southern shore of Lake Superior as early as the 17th century, but did
not exploit them. French influence was pushed back by losing the French
and Indian War (1754–1763) against the British. In 1830 iron ore was
discovered on the Upper Peninsula for the first time in addition to
copper. In 1841, Michigan State geologist Douglass Houghton confirmed
the presence of iron ore around present-day Marquette. In 1844 the
surveyor William A. Burt confirmed the richness of the deposit: when
surveying today's Negaunee (approx. 18 km south-west and inland of
Marquette) there were strong deviations in the compass direction due to
the openly exposed ore. In 1846, the Jackson Mine opened at the site of
Burt's discovery.
In order to ship the iron ore mined in the
Jackson Mine, the operators of the mine looked for a suitable port on
Lake Superior. Settlers led by Mackinac Island native Robert Graveraet
chose the natural harbor at the mouth of the Carp River adjacent to what
is now Marquette. Work on the port began in the summer of 1849. The
settlers named the place Worcester, after Worcester, Massachusetts, the
home of Amos R. Harlow, the leader of the second group of settlers that
followed Graveraet's group. The required building material and tools
came by sailing ship. The settlers built ore quays, houses, sheds and a
hotel. Workers and settlers for the booming ore mining industry quickly
followed, most of them of Irish, German and French origin. 1850 the
place was renamed in honor of Jacques Marquette of Worcester in
Marquette, 1859 declared as a village to the municipality
(incorporation), 1871 then to the city.
Roy A. Young (1882–1960), banker and Chairman of the Federal Reserve
System from 1927 to 1930
Frederick Eugene Wright (1877–1953),
mineralogist
Alfred Kidder (1885-1963), archaeologist excavating in
the American Southwest, developed several innovative methods of
archeology
Ralph Royce (1890–1965), military aviation pioneer and
Major General of the U.S. Air Force
John Lautner (1911–1994),
architect
Robert Erickson (1917–1997), composer of electronic music
Alfred Burt (1920–1954), jazz musician, composed fifteen Alfred S. Burt
Carols, Christmas-themed jazz pieces
Robert William Davis
(1932–2009), politician
Weldon Olson (1932–2023), ice hockey player
James W. Davis (born 1963), political scientist
Wendel Suckow (born
1967), luger
Eric Marcotte (born 1980), cyclist
Andy Contois (born
1981), ice hockey player
Justin Florek (born 1990), ice hockey player