MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Marquette Regional History Center hosted the ‘North Marquette: A Walking Tour with Jim Koski’ event on Wednesday, Sept. 14.
Tours began at 6:30 p.m. at Northern Michigan University’s Physical Education Instructional Facility.
Attendees were greeted by Koski and employees from the Marquette Regional History Center in the PEIF parking lot where the suggested $5 donation was collected. All proceeds will be going to the Marquette Regional History Center, a non-profit in town.
Koski, local radio personality and historical storyteller, has been leading around 30 tours for the Marquette Regional History Center. For the final tour of the season, Koski led attendees through the north side of Marquette down Presque Isle Avenue.
“We’ll also talk about a very fable thing in North Marquette which is the North Marquette ‘Swamp’,” said Koski. “People who grew up here were sometimes called ‘Swampers’ and there were large chunks of this area that were covered with nothing but trees and water. Over the years it’s all been built in so now it’s just residential areas. A lot of people who grew up here or know the history of the area still speak very fondly of the ‘Swamp’.”
Koski said that walking tours next season will pick back up after winter.