To quote a great Scottish philosopher, tonight's the night. Assuming, of course, the rains holds off.
Thar's right. Tonight's the night we hit the streets for the follow-up to the most successful tour I've ever given, "Happy Hours: The Legendary Bars of Marquette". As you may recall, last year almost 300 people followed me through a downtown Marquette filled with smoke haze as we discussed the debauchery, bad decisions, and what can happen when the legal drinking age was lowered to 18.
It was a blast.
Well, assuming it's not a downpour (and as I'm writing this it's just cloudy, with even a little blue sky here and there) we're doing it again tonight, taking a slightly different route and talking about some bars we didn't get to last time. Although, if this will be your first time on a bar tour, never fear--we'll be playing the greatest hits of Snuffy's, Andy's, Flagman's, and, of course, the Alibi In fact, I wrote a newspaper article about the Alibi, which I'm re-purposing (you remember that word, right?) below. So if you have the chance, and it's (fingers crossed) not raining, join us tonight. You'll hear amazing stories both old & new, get the chance to partake in Marquette's Social District should you choose, and maybe (just maybe) get the answer to a question that bugged us all last year--
Was a certain downtown bar actually Marquette's last-ever brothel?
The answer tonight!
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Today, the building houses a personal training center. But for approximately 15 years, it was the home of one of the most popular college bars in Marquette history…
The Alibi.
Not a lot of pictures or physical documentation exists of the Alibi, probably because the people who went there had had things OTHER than documenting history on their mind. But the stories that came from the nightclub will live on for years to come.
The Alibi opened in December of 1974 when several investors purchased The Brat House, which in the two years it had been opened had developed a reputation as one of the rowdier establishments on Marquette’s bar scene. The Alibi Rock Theater, as it was first known, was designed to be nothing like the Brat House. Its major selling point was a state of the art sound system that could shake the floor and projectors that could allow the new owners to show movies and televised sporting events on the bar’s walls.
However, like all Marquette college bars of the 1970s, the Alibi quickly developed a reputation of its own.
It’s been said by those who were there that the Alibi’s busiest days were snow days at NMU, when students would quickly head across the street from the dorms to celebrate classes being canceled. If students weren’t quite sure where to go, ads placed in the North Wind thoughtfully showed just how easy it was to get from Magers or Meyland Hall to the club.
The Alibi just wasn’t a place for college students to get cheap drinks like the legendary “Supa Beers”.. With its sound system, the Alibi also had a long history with music. Like almost every college bar in the country in the 1970s, it’s claimed that “The Alligator” was first danced there. And as disco swept the country, the Alibi was one of the first places in the UP that went all in with a lit dance floor, strobe lights, and a group of DJs still remembered fondly to this day.
Like many bars of the era that catered to college students, the Alibi’s first big test came in December of 1978 when the state of Michigan raised its drinking age from 18 to 21. That meant the vast majority of NMU students couldn't legally purchase a drink. That didn't stop the vast majority of them from trying to get served, leading the bar to place ads in local papers asking minors to please PLEASE stop trying.
Needless to say, the ads didn't have the desired effect.
To try to make up for the last revenue the bar tried many different stunts & promotions; everything from attempting to cash in on the “Urban Cowboy” craze to contests that would rate patrons parading around in tight jeans and wet T-shirts, events that would raise an eyebrow or two these days. One of the Alibi’s biggest promotions throughout the 1980s was a quasi sporting event. According to someone who worked at the bar in the 1980s, their one lasting memory of the Alibi was coming into work at noon every day and smelling nothing but Jell-O thanks to the Jello-O wrestling that had been held the night before.
The one thing the Alibi did have going for it was its sound system. Live music was a mainstay at the bar, and many local performers recall the nights they spent playing there, some developing a fan base that lasted for years. As the years wore on, the projectors that were installed in 1974 were used less and less, leading the bar's customers during its latter years to not even know they existed
Like many college bars in the 1980s liquor license violations were common; in fact, some people say the Alibi would serve you as long as you were tall enough to empty your piggy bank on the bar. Even new owners couldn’t stop the stem of under-aged college students trying their best to get served. After another license suspension in late 1990, the bar's owners called it quits, shutting down a club that literally thousands of NMU students considered their second home.
The legend, however, lives on, as even three and a half decades after it closed, people will still share fond stories of what they were able to get away with at the Marquette bar “where the funzat”...
The Alibi.
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Stories (and establishments) such as those of the Alibi will be the focus of "Happy Hour II—More Bars & Even More Wild Stories” a walking tour for the Marquette Regional History Center. It gets underway at 630 on Wednesday, August 26th, at the History Center, and will take place within the city's Social District. There's a $5 suggested donation. To find out more, call the History Center at (906) 226-3571, or visit www.marquettehistory.org.
