Menominee Range Historical Museum

  300 East Ludington Street Iron Mountain, MI 49801 Seasonal Phone:  (906) 774-4276 Open June 3 through Labor Day Hours: 11 am - 3 pm Tuesday - Friday Call for Fall Hours Admission Rates: Click here The Menominee Range Historical Museum collections are housed in the former Carnegie Public Library, built in 1901-1902 with a gift of $17,500 from Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Public Library opened April 15, 1902, serving as Iron Mountain's public library and later the Dickinson County Library until the new Dickinson County Library opened April 16, 1969.  On July 6, 1974, the building was dedicated as the Menominee Range Historical Foundation Museum and was added to the Michigan State Register of Historic Sites in May, 1977. The Museum features over 100 exhibits depicting life on the Menominee Iron Range from the latter part of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twentieth century. The country store welcomes visitors upon entering the museum, stocked with a wide variety of life's necessities from the turn of the twentieth century. Dating from between 1650 and 1756, this dugout canoe, found on the West Branch of the Sturgeon River near Foster City, Dickinson County, Michigan, highlights a collection of regional Native American artifacts.  A birch bark canoe made by the Menominee Indians who lived in Badwater is also displayed, dating from the early 1900's when their canoes were sold for one dollar per foot. Early area settlement is shown by a Native American diorama, a trapper's cabin, trading post and real estate office.  Lumberjack tools, a gun collection and the interior of an iron mine round out displays focusing on early area history. The late Victorian parlor, center of family activity on special days, contains a pump organ, an Edison photograph with elaborately painted morning glory horn and an antique grandfather's clock.  A typical bedroom is located in the adjoining diorama. The late Victorian kitchen bustles with activity with the cook stove and woodbox next to the back door and the well-stocked Hoosier cupboard. A barber shop, doctor's office, dentist's office, pharmacy, watchmaker's shop, ice house, milk house, barn and stable help round out the depictions of everyday life around 1900.  Children can sit in the graduated desks, complete with ink wells, in the schoolroom. A moonshine still, folding bathtub, hand-cranked washing machine, early musical instruments, mechanical banks and early doll collection prove interesting to visitors.