Miners in the U.P. Left Part of Their Lunch Underground for the Tommyknockers
A knock in the rock a mile underground meant something to Copper Country miners. It was the tommyknockers, and the Cornish custom of feeding...
How the U.P. became the U.P.
History & Culture
People, places, traditions, industries, and turning points that shaped Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
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A Freighter Vanished Off the U.P. in 1902 and All That Ever Came Back Was One Life Preserver
The SS Bannockburn sailed into a Lake Superior snowstorm in 1902 and vanished with 20 men. The only trace ever found washed up at...
The Great Lakes’ Most Hunted Shipwreck Has Been Missing Since 1679
In 1679 a French ship loaded with furs sailed east into Lake Michigan and vanished. Le Griffon is still the most hunted shipwreck on...
He Started the U.P.’s Copper Rush. Then He Warned Everyone to Stay Away.
The U.P.’s entire copper boom traces back to one man and one report in 1841. What gets left out is that Douglass Houghton spent...
Iron Mountain Almost Buried This Mine in 1993. One Caver Saved a Quarter-Million Bats.
A rumored-bottomless mine shaft in Iron Mountain turned out to hold a quarter-million bats. How one caver kept the city from burying them alive.
Everyone Thinks the U.P. Is Copper and Iron. In 1880 a Druggist Found Gold.
Everyone remembers U.P. copper and iron. Almost nobody remembers the druggist who struck gold near Ishpeming in 1880 and built Michigan’s only profitable gold...
The Christmas Tree Ship Left the U.P. in 1912 and Never Arrived. Her Trees Are Still Aboard.
The Rouse Simmons, the Christmas Tree Ship, left Thompson near Manistique in 1912 with 5,500 trees and never reached Chicago. Her trees are still...
He Greeted Marquette’s Founders in 1849. The City Buried Him Like a King in 1902.
Chief Charles Kawbawgam welcomed Marquette's founders ashore in 1849, presided as the last local Ojibwe chief, and rests at Presque Isle under a Lake...
Michigan’s Worst Mine Disaster Took 51 Men in 15 Minutes. One Man Outclimbed It.
The Barnes-Hecker mine near Ishpeming flooded in 15 minutes in 1926, killing 51 men. One miner, Wilfred Wills, climbed 800 feet of ladders and...
An Entire U.P. Town Emptied Out in 1891. The Furnaces Are Still Loaded.
Fayette is the U.P.'s preserved ghost town, an iron company town abandoned in 1891 with charcoal still loaded in its furnaces. Why it died...
The Last Stagecoach Robbery East of the Mississippi Happened in the U.P.
The last stagecoach robbery east of the Mississippi happened near Lake Gogebic in 1889, when Reimund Holzhey, Michigan's Black Bart, killed a vacationing banker.
Escanaba Had an Actual Pirate. The Feds Chased Him Down With a Gunboat in 1908.
Roaring Dan Seavey, widely called the only man ever arrested for piracy on the Great Lakes, ran his schooner out of Escanaba. The true...
This Toast Is So Hard You Have to Dunk It. Yoopers Have Loved It Since 1928.
Trenary Toast is the U.P.'s rock-hard cinnamon korppu, baked in the tiny town of Trenary since 1928 and dunked in coffee across the peninsula...
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