Keweenaw Rocket Range: Michigan's Space Launch Site
From 1964 to 1971, NASA and the University of Michigan fired research rockets off the very tip of the Keweenaw, mostly in winter, over...
How the U.P. became the U.P.
History & Culture
People, places, traditions, industries, and turning points that shaped Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Everything in this lane
Newest first. Narrow it to the part of the U.P. you care about.
The Cornish Pump: Iron Mountain's 725-Ton Engine
The Chapin Mine sat under a cedar swamp and flooded relentlessly, so Iron Mountain got a 725-ton answer: the largest steam-driven pumping engine ever...
Negaunee's Caving Grounds: The Town That Moved
Iron was found under Negaunee in 1844, and for a century the town mined itself hollow, until fences reading Danger: Caving Grounds ringed its...
Birch Creek 1871: The Peshtigo Fire’s Forgotten U.P. Chapter
On October 8, 1871, while Chicago burned, the deadliest wildfire in American history jumped the Menominee River into the U.P. and took the farming...
Grand Island: The Private Game Preserve Off Munising
Around 1900 the president of Cleveland-Cliffs turned Grand Island into a private ark, stocking elk, caribou, and antelope behind armed guards. Lake Superior winters...
Pressie: Lake Superior’s Serpent Legend
Lake Superior has its own monster legend. Sailors have reported a serpent off the U.P. shore since 1894, the Anishinaabe told of Mishipeshu long...
Kingsford Charcoal: Not Made in the U.P. Anymore
Ford Motor Company turned scrap wood from its U.P. lumber operations into charcoal briquettes and sold them through auto dealerships. After Ford sold the...
Hemingway's Two Hearted River Was Really the Fox
Hemingway named his famous story for the Two Hearted River, but his 1919 U.P. fishing trip was on the Fox near Seney. Here is...
Big Annie Clemenc: The Flag-Carrying Heroine of Calumet
Anna "Big Annie" Clemenc marched daily with an American flag during the nine-month Copper Country strike. Her courage made her one of Michigan labor...
The U.P.’s Ancient Copper Miners: 7,000 Years of Old Copper
Native peoples mined the U.P.’s copper as far back as 7,000 years ago, some of the oldest metalworking in the Americas. When the 1840s...
U.P. Rum-Running: Prohibition Bootlegging on the Border
During Prohibition, whiskey poured across the U.P.’s Canadian border, sometimes with the Coast Guard’s help. It starts with a tug called the Arbutus and...
The U.P. Sauna: How Finnish Heritage Built the Sauna Belt
Finnish immigrants in the U.P. often built the sauna before the house and lived in it while they built everything else. Inside the Copper...
Tommyknockers: The Copper Country’s Mine Ghosts
A knock in the rock a mile underground meant something to Copper Country miners. It was the tommyknockers, and the Cornish custom of feeding...
Stories appear newest first and keep their original dates, corrections, and source records. Follow the essential history path Corrections policy