Three. There are three Rotary Clubs in Marquette, if you're curious.
As I had mentioned yesterday I made a presentation to a second Rotary Club in Marquette in as many weeks. I was actually a fill-in speaker, as their original speaker didn't make it, and seeing as how I had made the presentation to a first Marquette Rotary Club the week before, it was a breeze.
Now, how long until the THIRD Rotary Club wants to hear it, too?
8-)
The talk is one I've given several times this year, on exactly how Marquette has changed over the past 50 years. You see, it's kind of apt, because 50 years ago this December the last shipment of iron ore went out of Lower Harbor. For half a century now Dock #6 has sat silent, and that half century has seen a profound change in Marquette. No longer is it a dirty, grungy industrial city. Now, it's a home to arts, education, medicine, and bike paths.
Lots and lots of bike paths, almost all of which were made possible because the train lines that ran through “old” Marquette made a perfect bed for them.
Just a few of ways the “old” Marquette has been radically transformed over the past half century? Well, the Coal Yard is no longer here. It went from this--
To this--
The old Roundhouse property went from this--
To this--
And so on, and so on. The transformation continues even today, as two old coal fired power plants are coming down in favor of beaches and other uses. It's a point I try to make in the presentation—Marquette has changed several times over the 172 years it's been around, but (at least in my opinion) the change has been the most profound in the past half century, during the lifetimes of most of us.
And if those pictures don't prove it, I don't know what does.
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