I was walking through downtown Marquette the other day when a thought struck me.
The new Rosewood Building is just a couple of blocks away from a bunch of historic structures that have been around since 1890. So does that mean the Rosewood itself will last that long?
I mean, 130 years is a long time. Not many things are that old, aside from sandstone buildings and maybe my dad.
And when you consider all the changes that have occurred around a place like the Savings Bank Building in 130 years, it makes you wonder what the UP will be like when the Rosewood itself hits that mark.
In 2153.
Sure, 2153 seems like something from science fiction, but if you had asked the builders of the Douglass House to look 130 years into their future, I’m sure 2023 seemed unimaginable.
It’s made me wonder about the U.P. of the future. As always, the jokes come first– Are they still working on the Cut River Bridge? Do people still put dill pickles on pasties? And …what do you mean the Lions haven’t yet made it to the Super Bowl?
But then you start to think serious things about the future.
By 2153, will the UP have become a haven against climate change, where people move to escape storms and oppressive heat, or will we be victims of that change, losing our forests, our snow, or even our Great Lakes?
How many of the buildings we now see & use every day will have been torn down and replaced by something new?
And dill pickles on top or no, in 130 years will pasties even still be a thing? It would be sad, but it’s a possibility.
And it raises this question–if you were able to travel to the UP of 2153, would you even recognize it?
We won’t be around to see what the UP of 130 years in the future will look like. But there’s a district possibility that a future historic building currently going up in downtown Marquette will.
I’m Jim Koski, and that’s another slice of “Life in the 906.”
