Marquette Lions Lakeside Park

Located on South Front Street in Marquette next to the Lake Superior Community Partnership.

Remember Civil War History at Marquette Lions Lakeside Park

By Adam Berger

Ore from the Upper Peninsula helped win the Civil War. Keweenaw copper went into bronze to cast cannons and Marquette County iron was made into steel for muskets and swords. A cannon was placed in the vicinity of Marquette Lions Lakeside Park to defend Marquette Harbor, also known as Iron Bay.

This photo was taken by Brainard Freedman Childs (1842-1921), an artistic young Union soldier from Vermont. After serving in the war, B.F. Childs traveled around Lake Superior in a Mackinaw-style boat called The Wanderer, capturing the region’s dramatic beauty through a new form of photography. Images from the Gems of Lake Superior series were viewed with stereoscopes, which produced a novel three-dimensional effect and may be considered an early form of virtual reality.

As it happened, the threat to Marquette came not from the Confederacy but from local labor strife. The rising demand for and price of iron did not result in commensurately higher wages for miners. When the Civil War ended in the spring of 1865, layoffs began, and unrest spread among Upper Peninsula mining communities. On July 3, 1865, 1,500 to 2,000 disgruntled iron miners formed a mob, destroyed mine property, and prepared to march from the mines near Negaunee to Marquette to punish the mining bosses.

The USS Michigan, charged with patrolling the Great Lakes for Confederate saboteurs, was passing near Marquette when its crew saw townspeople waving white sheets and pillowcases to draw their attention. The iron-hulled war steamer pulled into Marquette Harbor and its crew determined to quell this uprising. The ship’s two twelve-pound howitzers were placed on rail cars and transported to the striking miners’ camp. The miners were given twenty-four hours to stop the strike or be shelled without mercy. The strikers decided to go back to work.

The USS Michigan then departed to the Keweenaw Peninsula to quell potential labor rebellions in the Copper Country. Since the copper mines were more dispersed, and the lack of rail infrastructure made transporting heavy cannons impossible, the crew needed to change tactics. Instead of going to the striking copper miners, they invited people to come aboard the warship to see its heavy armaments. The USS Michigan also tested its guns in target practice, demonstrating the ship’s destructive power. The copper miners backed down at this show of force.

When the USS Michigan returned to Marquette on July 13, 1865, iron miners had resumed their strike. This time, strikers formed a rail blockade that prevented artillery from being transported to their camp. The sailors sent word for reinforcements by telegraph. On July 15, troops from the Eighth Veteran Reserve Corps arrived at Negaunee from Chicago. Trapped between the warship and a contingent of experienced soldiers, the iron miners eventually surrendered, ending the labor mutiny, which has come to be known as Michigan’s Peninsula War.

The intervention of the USS Michigan in Upper Peninsula mining strikes at the end of the Civil War is thought to be the only instance of a U.S. warship being used to suppress domestic labor unrest.

Help preserve Marquette’s vivid history. Join the Marquette Lions Club in developing interpretive signs at Marquette Lions Lakeside Park by making a tax-deductible donation. Contact Lion Mary Rule at (906) 250-1596 for more information.