Marquette

Marquette, city, seat (1851) of Marquette county, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S. On the shore of Lake Superior, overlooked by Sugarloaf Mountain (north), it lies about 65 miles (105 km) north-northwest of Escanaba. Founded in 1849 as Worcester and renamed for Jesuit explorer Jacques Marquette, it became an important iron ore and lumber port. It later developed heavy industries, but most of those had left the city by the early 1990s; manufactures now include food products and concrete. Other economic factors are telecommunications, tourism, and Northern Michigan University (1899). Marquette is a Roman Catholic diocesan seat; St. Peter’s Cathedral (1937) contains the crypt of Bishop Frederic Baraga, the first bishop of the Upper Peninsula. The city’s Presque Isle Park is on a small wooded peninsula extending into the lake. The Marquette County Historical Museum and Marquette Maritime Museum are located in the city. A herd of wild moose was reintroduced to the area in the mid-1980s, the only such herd in the state since the species was hunted to near extinction in the early 20th century. The U.S. Coast Guard operates a station at the oldest (1866) of the city’s three lighthouses. Inc. village, 1859; city, 1871. Pop. (2000) 19,661; (2010) 21,355.