Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – Superior Scenery and Some

Remarkable People

Why I say ya to da U.P., eh?

The region’s economy is bolstered by mining the abundant iron ores.

The iron ranges have the most topographic relief and the best scenery.

Huron Mountain Club

Saux Head Lake

Granot Loma

Little Presque Isle

Middle Island

Presque Isle

WaNiPa

A Lake Superior kayak adventure was how I began my retirement - from Big Bay to Presque Isle.

We started by paddling from Lake Independence to Lake Superior via Iron River.

Scenes along the way…

Arrow shows nonconformity between Archean below and younger Precambrian Jacobsville Sandstone.

Granot Loma is a National Historic Landmark begun by Louis and Marie Kauffman in 1919.

The Little Presque Isle tract is often called the crown jewel of Lake Superior, with its beautiful sand beaches, rugged shoreline cliffs, heavily timbered

forests, and unmatched public views.

We paddled through the gap between the mainland and Little Presque Isle. It is shallow enough that one can wade to the island from the shore.

Finished at Presque Isle Park

The Roman Catholic Bishop Baraga is buried in St. Peter’s Cathedral which is the center for the diocese of Marquette.

Longyear mansion, 1908

Now in Brookline, MA

The Longyear Mansion, with a distinct history dating back to the 1890s, was originally built in Marquette, Michigan for John and Mary Longyear. John Longyear, who made his fortune in mining, logging and heavy industry, used native red and brown stone as the primary material for the exterior of the building. It was built on a hill that overlooked Lake Superior. The house was landscaped by the famous architect Frederick Law Olmsted and was completed in 1892. Around the turn-of-the-century, tragedy struck the Longyears when one of their sons drowned in Lake Superior. Mary Longyear was very fond of the house but couldn't bear to stay in it because every time she looked out the windows she could see Lake Superior where her son had drowned. The Longyears moved to Boston to get away from the tragic memories and to live closer to Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, but were so fond of the house, they had it dismantled, numbered each stone and moved the entire house 1,300 miles by train in 172 freight and flat cars to Boston. While re-constructing the house atop Fisher Hill in Brookline, they added another 20 rooms to the original house.In time their home became an educational center for the Church, and upon Mary Longyear's death in 1931, the mansion and grounds became the Longyear Foundation, housing a museum and archive of early Christian Science documents and artifacts.

Howard Longyear’s tragic drowning led to the Stone House at Ives Lake

Through its long association with the non-profit Huron Mountain Foundation, the Huron Mountain Club has been the site of a wide range of research in field biology and geology. The research facility at Ives Lake was started in the 1960s, after Ives lake passed from Longyear family hands into Club ownership.

The Longyears were known for their philanthropy and were generous patrons of art, music, and education. They contributed to many institutions organized for benevolent purposes, including the extension of the teaching of the blind by the Braille system and the publication of the Bible in Braille.Mrs. Longyear generously provided funds to purchase a portion of the land adjoining The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, known as The Mother Church. The land is now part of the Christian Science Church plaza on Huntington Avenue in Boston.At a time when development threatened landmarks in the name of progress, Mrs. Longyear collected paintings, furniture, documents, photographs, and artifacts on the life and work of Mary Baker Eddy. The former Longyear residence and its grounds are now the site of the condominiums known as Longyear at Fisher Hill.

Who Peter White was and where he came from:

Rome, New York-born in 1839, by 1852 he was postmaster of Carp River (now Marquette), a position he held for 12 years. With no money to invest in mining lands, White opened a store for miners and became involved in banking and real estate. By the Civil War, Peter White was the town's leading citizen. In addition to dealing in lands, timber, iron ore, and insurance; he was active in civic and public affairs. Peter White provided funds for Marquette's public library and hospital and helped establish Presque Isle as a city park. During White's memorial service in 1908, it was said of him, "If you want to see his monument, look around you."

George Shiras III (or as Shiras signed it, “3d”) first saw the woods and waters of northern Michigan in the summer of 1870, when he was 11 years old. Nothing in his later experience would ever dim the impression they made on him—not the trappings of wealth and position; not the influence of the finest schools; not the example of his father, a U.S. Supreme Court justice; not a promising legal career of his own. Not even a term spent in the U.S. Congress, where he introduced the legislation that would become the Migratory Bird Law—securing for Shiras an important place in the annals of conservation—could lure him away for long. – National Geographic Magazine

On November 13, 1870, Louis Graveraet Kaufman was born in Marquette—one of twelve children. He attended school in Marquette and graduated at seventeen years of age. Kaufman then entered the banking world and became enormously successful. He was considered the father of branch banking and was instrumental along with others in helping reorganize General Motors. Kaufman and a small group of investors funded the building of the Empire State Building in New York City. In 1916 Kaufman reimbursed the Marquette Board of Education $26,000, which the board had paid him for land on which to build a new high school. The board named the future high school "Graveraet" in honor of Kaufman's mother, Juliet Graveraet Kaufman, and the auditorium was named the L.G. Kaufman Auditorium. However, World War I intervened and construction was not begun on the school until 1925. The cornerstone was put in place in 1926. It was thought that the class of 1927 would be the first graduating class. But the building was not completed until 1928 and that class was the first graduating class from Graveraet. Kaufman invited the classes of 1927, '28 and '29 to a gala graduation party at the Kaufman Granot Loma Lodge near Birch on the Big Bay Road just north of Marquette. In 1927 Kaufman established an endowment fund "to bring to the children and people of Marquette some of the finer things in the world of education, travel and art…" Kaufman was the first person in the United States to endow a high school and Graveraet High School was the first high school in the country to be endowed.

Louis’ older brother Sam Kaufman built this near the outlet of Saux Head Lake.

John D. Voelker (1903-1991), better known by his pen name Robert Traver, was an attorney, judge, and writer. He is best known as the author of the novel, Anatomy of a Murder published in 1958. The best-selling novel was turned into an Academy Award nominated film -- directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jimmy Stewart -- that was released July 1, 1959. Duke Ellington wrote the music for the movie. It is critically acclaimed as one of the best trial movies of all time.Anatomy of a Murder is based on a real homicide and subsequent trial that occurred in Big Bay, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early morning of July 31, 1952. Coleman A. Peterson, a Lieutenant in the Army, was charged with murdering Maurice Chenoweth. The alleged motive was revenge for the rape of Peterson's wife by Chenoweth. Voelker successfully defended Peterson who was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Testament of a Fisherman - I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful and I hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant - and not nearly so much fun.

Sam Cohodas was born on September 19, 1895 in Kobylnik, Poland. His father Aaron immigrated to the United Stated and moved to Marinette, Wisconsin. Wife Eva and six children followed in 1903 when Sam was 7 years old. Sam quit school in the sixth grade, and by the age of 13 began peddling fruits and served in World War I.

The family produce business was established by Aaron in Houghton, Michigan. The Cohodas Brothers Fruit Company was formed when Sam was nineteen and eventually became the third largest produce company in the United States. Mr. Cohodas served as president and vice president of Western Fruit Jobbers in 1933-1934, and as director of the International Apple Association.

Cohodas’ second major career in banking began in 1934 when he opened the Miners First National Bank of Ishpeming, Michigan. He eventually acquired the First National Bank of Marquette, as well as banks and branches in Escanaba, Hermansville, Iron Mountain, Ironwood, Trenary, and K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base, which together formed Michigan Financial Corporation (MFC) of which he remained chairman of the board until age 90.

Cohodas, was also known for his philanthropic and community activities. Locally, he was involved in such organizations as the Red Cross, Boy Scouts of America, and the United Way. He was instrumental in establishing Francis A. Bell Memorial Hospital in Ishpeming. In recognition of his work, he was named First Citizen of Ishpeming in 1960. Cohodas was supportive of Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he received an honorary doctorate of Agricultural in recognition for his support. The University also named the Sam Cohodas Chair in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture in his honor. Cohodas was involved in many charity activities, including Boys Town in Jerusalem and Bell Memorial Hospital in Ishpeming for which he raised $2 million

JOHN EDWARD LAUTNER, JR. FAIA(1911-1994)

John Lautner was born in Marquette MI of academic parents at a local college now called Northern Michigan University. He first attended the University of Michigan but left soon after starting. In 1933, he graduated from Northern Michigan University in English and began a six-year job with Frank Lloyd Wright -- in the first class of Taliesin Fellows at Spring Green WI. His fiancée Mary (MaryBud) Faustina Roberts Lautner (1913-1995) was also an early Taliesin Fellow. They married in 1934.

For Wright, Lautner supervised Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and the Johnson Wax Building in Wisconsin. He also oversaw a Wright design for his mother-in-law Abby Beecher Roberts, the Deertrack house in Marquette MI. The Lautners moved to California in 1937 for John to oversee the construction of Wright's Sturges and Oboler houses.

Glenn Theodore Seaborg (1912 –1999), a Swede from Ishpeming, was an American scientist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements," contributed to the discovery and isolation of ten elements, and developed the actinide concept, which led to the current arrangement of the actinoid series in the periodic table of the elements. He spent most of his career as an educator and research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley where he became the second Chancellor in its history and served as a University Professor. He advised ten presidents from Truman to Clinton on nuclear policy and was the chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971 where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and peaceful applications of nuclear science. Throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control. He was a key contributor to the report "A Nation at Risk" as a member of President Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education and was the principal author of the Seaborg Report on academic science issued in the closing days of the Eisenhower administration. After sharing the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan, he received approximately 50 honorary doctorates and numerous other awards and honors.

Married for eighteen years to his wife Clare, an artist and seamstress, Chuch chose for his home a simple lifestyle, close to the earth in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He loved fishing, snowmobiling, four-wheeling, making maple syrup, and spending time in the forest with his dogs. He was an active member of Messiah Lutheran Church, serving in a variety of supportive leadership roles, most often with youth ministry programs. Chuch Magee also served as one of the first volunteers and founders of the Cedar Tree Institute, a nonprofit organization.

Royden W. "Chuch" MageeRoad Tech for The Rolling Stones and Ron Wood

Arch and Ridge Streets Historic District