MARQUETTE MARITIME MUSEUM

Marquette Maritime Museum was founded in 1980 and opened its doors in the 1891 City Waterworks building in 1984. In 2002, the Museum leased the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse from the US Coast Guard for historic preservation, and soon after, we added exhibits in the building and began giving tours of the lighthouse and seven-acre Coast Guard station grounds. As directed by an act of Congress, in July 2016, ownership of the lighthouse transferred from the Coast Guard to the City of Marquette for use as a public park. The Museum, through a long-tern agreement with the City of Marquette, continues to offer lighthouse tours and use the lighthouse building for exhibits.

The Museum is well-known for housing one of the finest lighthouse lens collections on the Great Lakes. We display a 4-ton, second order Fresnel lens Stannard Rock Lighthouse, the largest lens ever used on the Great Lakes. With the addition of the Huron Island lens in 2016, we now have a second, three and a half, and a fourth order lens on display. When our DB24 airport beacon and modern acrylic system are included, we have nearly the entire evolution of lighthouse illuminating systems.

Other exhibits include local World War II Submarine veterans; Ojibwa Birch Bark Canoes from the 1800s; an extensive shipwreck exhibit that includes the Henry B. Smith and the Edmund Fitzgerald; a 3-D diorama of the breeches buoy rescue of the Maryland; and a rare collection of Lyle guns.

We also offer free local school field trips and Special Event Lighthouse Tours (sunrise, evening, and Paranormal). We host free children's art/history workshops, concerts, Lake Superior Day, our winter lecture series, Maritime History on Tap, and our annual Ghosts of Lighthouse Point fundraiser.