Marquette Maritime Museum

The Marquette Maritime Museum is a museum dedicated to Great Lakes shipping, housing objects from shipbuilding, navigation history, and regional maritime trade. Its collection includes ship models, navigation equipment, lighthouse artifacts, and documentation of vessels that operated in these waters.

The museum developed alongside Marquette Harbor Lighthouse, which was built in 1853 to mark the growing importance of lake shipping to iron ore trade. Over time, it expanded to document shipwrecks and maritime stories central to the region's development.

The museum reflects how shipping shaped daily life and community identity in this region, with displays showing the vessels that connected people and resources across the lakes. These exhibitions reveal the deep relationship between local residents and maritime tradition.

The building sits along the waterfront on Lake Shore Boulevard in Marquette and is currently undergoing renovations. Before planning a visit, it is worth calling ahead to confirm reopening details and current access.

The collection holds one of the largest arrays of Fresnel lenses in the Great Lakes area, documenting over a century of lighthouse and navigation technology. These glass lenses reveal how ships safely navigated the dark waters before modern electronics.