The lake has different moods, daily... sometimes hourly. This breakwater protects the city harbor from winter storms.
It reach about a mile out from shore.

This is the breakwater out at Presque Isle on the far north end of town. Turn around and walk 1/4 mile and you
get the view below.

Keep going and at the bottom of a steep hill, where the one-way road curves to the end of Presque Isle and
heads back, is "the Cove", where those desparate to swim jump off cliffs into very chilly water.  Some of the
oldest exposed rock on the planet I'm told. A bit further is Sunset Point, this one taken just after sunset.


From Steve's guest room again, sunrise this time.


At the neck of the penisula, Presque Isle, is an ore dock, still in use for shipping ore from the inland mines.
Brother Steve is about to retire from the railroad that services the mines, as did my Father. To the right is a
facility for unloading coal for a power (dirty) plant located along this beautiful shore.

Taken from the harbor edge, looking up at Washington Street, the main east/west street. The "modern"
building on the right is what replaced the former bank featured on the next photo, a post card from
probably the 50s. It's still the same bank. There was a barbershop in its basement where shined shoes
the only black man in town - until the Air Force located a base nearby. I would see him at baseball games,
always alone. I never thought to befriend him. Well I was a shy kid.



You can see it's boarded up but this was a functioning orphanage when we were kids. I'd see a group
of residents walking together sometimes, lead by a nun, going to the quarry to swim.

This is South Marquette's swimming hole, maybe an old quarry that filled with water. Lots of the local buildings
are faced with a reddish stone from this place. It was roughly S-shaped. In the top left shot you can see a
skinny peninsula jutting out into the water. There were all kinds of amenities, like hidden rocks you could stand to rest
on, if you knew where they were, a baby pool and a Tarzen Swing, a rope tied to a tree on a bank, middle shot.
You had to swim across to get to it so it was for "big kids" only. There was a ritual where, when you were ready,
the older kids would escort you on your first dog paddle across to the swing. In the third shot you can still see the
structure for the diving board, a really big kid thing. The area in the first shot was "swim at your own risk", the
life guard not being responsible, though of course they would come if needed. It was very deep in the far corner
where Katie Ref drowned when she was only ten. The "lake" is now surrounded by condos, privatized.

The first attempt to settle Marquette was just south of where it eventually was set, by the Carp River.

This is Graverate High School from whence we all graduated. The wing to the right is the gym, the
wing to the left the auditorium. That's Front Street running by there, leading to the left, to downtown,
only a few blocks. We'd walk here, probably 2-3 miles from home, being one block short of qualifying
to take the school bus. A new high school was built while I was finishing up. I think I was in the last
class to use this building, 1962.