When the family of J.M. Longyear donated his papers and records to the newly formed Marquette County Historical Society in 1918, little could they know that less than a century later, that collection would be the centerpiece of a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art facility serving as a hub for culture in the region.
That facility is the
Marquette Regional History Center. Since opening at its new location between Spring and Baraga streets on Third Street in March 2010, the MRHC is beginning to achieve its destiny, according to executive director Kaye Hiebel.
"We feel like we're just starting," Hiebel says. "We haven't even hit our stride yet."
The new building has given the center many new opportunities, including a community gathering space, a special exhibit gallery, a classroom and an expanded research library. The gathering space is an atrium which can be used for programs or special presentations and also can be rented out by the community. The special exhibit gallery is rotated four times per year.
The path to this new facility began sometime in 2003 and 2004. Through 85 years of community donations, the former home of the musem on Front Street had run out of room. The building was inaccessible to people with handicaps and contained no elevator. Larger groups, Hiebel explains, would have to be split, with half touring the museum and half starting at the neighboring Peter White Public Library.
After a series of community input sessions and an initial concept, prepared without charge by architect Barry Polzin, the new property was purchased. Construction and renovation began right away leading to a series of surprises.
The site's previous tenants have included a grocery store, the Michigan State Police crime lab, and a bus depot for MarqTran and Greyhound buses. It offered plenty of space, but converting it to a history museum didn't come without challenges.
"Spring Street is called Spring Street for a reason," Hiebel says. The street is actually built over a natural spring, resulting in the new facility needing a massive dewatering system put in place.
Through the multi-year project, the local community was kept in mind first and foremost. "What we raised locally," Hiebel explains, "we spent locally." Local contractors were used and local artisans and craftsmen were asked to make the displays within.
The community-first theme is necessary for an organization like MRHC. Being a private, non-profit organization, they receive no city, state or federal monies.
"This project was built by this community," Hiebel says of the capital campaign still in progress. So far they have raised $2.7 million of the more-than-$3.5 million cost of the property plus construction.
Even after the building was finished, there was a bigger challenge ahead--namely the moving of the artifacts, collections and research library.
"Can you imagine what it takes to move a museum?" Heibel asks.
The process of moving the contents of the museum took months of carefully arranged trips with volunteer movers from the general public, NMU and even a professional mover.
"If people are giving us things, the expectation is that we are going to take care of them," she says.
One of the biggest areas to move was the research library. According to head librarian Rosemary Michelin, moving the library took six months. Michelin says there were three major moves involved in transplanting the entire library between sites along with countless single pickup truck trips.
"We enlisted a lot of volunteers to help us," Michelin says.
Those volunteers were carefully packing, arranging and moving more than 2,000 boxes full of centuries of Upper Peninsula history. Included in the collection are more than 800 maps, some as old as the late 1600s, and more than 100,000 photographs. Also moved was a newspaper collection dating back to 1852 along with archival documents, reference books, clippings, and card files.
Michelin says the biggest challenge was keeping everything well organized. Such a challenging move did provide the library with a few opportunities, however.
"In the process," says Michelin, "we found a lot of things that had been missing." Some items were shelved incorrectly, and some had been missing for years.
The move to a new facility also provided the chance to upgrade and update their organization and storage systems. They implemented a rolling rack system to save space and a halon gas fire suppression system to prevent the unique historical documents from being lost in a fire--like one that damaged the archives at Michigan Technological University's J.R. Van Pelt Library earlier this year.
"We're caretakers for this collection for the short period we're here," Michelin says.
The neighboring community has been very supportive of the move.
"We really felt like we were welcome here," Hiebel says of the new location. "All of our new neighbors have been incredibly excited and supportive."
Those new neighbors include several retail businesses, eateries, the Upper Peninsula Children's Museum and the historic Marquette County Courthouse, among others.
Pat Black, director of the Marquette County Convention and Visitors Bureau, says, "The design fits in so well with the historic buildings downtown. It's located in just a great place."
The CVB is one of the many community partners for MRHC. When a convention is booked in Marquette, Black calls the MRHC and often the center can design a special exhibit to go along with the convention. Earlier this year, MRHC did an exhibit co-promoting the National Model A convention which came to Marquette. In 2013, they are planning a special exhibit about biking to go along with the local bike races.
"It's huge for us," Black says.
Between the Children's Museum, Maritime Museum, Iron Ore Museum, and other facilities in the area, Hiebel sees the Marquette Regional History Center as playing an important role in the future of cultural tourism in the area.
"This is the cornerstone of all that," she says.
Lee F. Brown is a freelance journalist, novelist, and restaurant manager who has lived in the U.P. his whole life. A graduate of Michigan Tech, Lee resides in Marquette with his wife and three children.
All photos by Shawn Malone.