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!
(jim@wmqt.com)
******
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.
********
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.
