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Tech students explore history

HOUGHTON – Most historical presentations in the Copper Country cover aspects of the mining era.

But the recent decades have their own compelling traits and trends to examine. Some of them were on display at the Carnegie Museum in Houghton Tuesday at the reception for its newest exhibit, “The Making of Modern Houghton: 1940-2015.”

The exhibit was based on research done by Michigan Technological University professor Carol MacLennan’s spring 2014 social sciences class. In the class, students learn methodologies for studying communities.

Collecting the work in an exhibit was part of the frame for the project from the start, MacLennan said.

“What the students were learning was how to do the historical research, but also how to do the interviewing, and detective work, ethnographic work to put together a story that would tell us about Houghton after World War II,” she said.

Nearly all of that time frame comes after the Isle Royale Mine facilities near the city closed at the end of World War II, ending Houghton’s mining era.

The class discussed what changes to focus on from the decades since. Those include the shift from becoming a village to a city in 1970, and Michigan Tech’s efforts to improve female and minority enrollment. Another part of the exhibit covers the downtown’s decline, as businesses relocated to M-26 in the 1980s and ’90s, and its recovery in recent years.

Throughout the semester, the class worked with museum director Elise Nelson and former City Manager Scott MacInnes to decide in which areas the community would be most interested.

“It wasn’t just an academic exercise,” MacLennan said.

It will also serve as a part of a permanent exhibit on Houghton that will be in the museum’s lower floor.

Marc Hoffman, a student in the class who researched transportation, was struck by the emotional investment in the area’s rail system, which was taken out after the closure of the mines. There were efforts in the early ’90s to restore the rails.

“Even though bringing them back still wouldn’t be very economically viable, they wanted to bring them back because they liked them,” he said.

Brenna Thompson, who studied festivals, saw a contrast in the original Old Settlers’ Ball, held twice in the late 1800s as an exclusive event for the leading families of the era, and the tribute ball held in 2004 to mark the 100th anniversary of professional hockey.

“It was a tourist event, so people could travel from foreign countries, all over the United States to come to this ball and learn about Houghton’s history,” she said.

Mary Jane Lowney, a Hancock resident born and raised in the area, praised the students’ work.

“It’s hard to pull out the most important details, and I think it does an interesting job of pulling out the interesting elements that took place,” she said.

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