Carnegie Museum to hold Third Annual Night at the Museum Sept. 21

HOUGHTON -- The Carnegie Museum will hold its Third Annual Night at the Museum from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. TOMORROW, Saturday, Sept. 21.

Take a Red Jacket Trolley ride and trace the ruins of Houghton's Isle Royale Mine. Enjoy gourmet sweets and savories, local beer, wine and a silent auction at the museum.

Tickets are $25. Choose your trolley tour time -- 4 p.m., 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. -- when you purchase your tickets. Tickets are available at Carnegie Museum, Houghton City Center, or at the Door. (Tickets sold at the door are not guaranteed a trolley tour.)

All proceeds from Night at the Museum benefit museum restoration, exhibits, and programs.

While you're there, check out three current exhibits:

"Last Days of Italian Hall: Photographs of Calumet's Italian Hall 1981-1988" by local photographer Eric Munch

Photographer Eric Munch speaks at the Aug. 13, 2013, opening of his exhibit, "Last Days of Italian Hall," at the Carnegie Museum. The exhibit is a series of 21 photographs Munch took of Italian Hall before, during, and after its 1984 demolition. (Photos by Keweenaw Now)
  
Family Ties: Memorials to Those Lost in the 1913 Italian Hall Tragedy, by the Houghton Keweenaw County Genealogical Society

Forty-nine families lost loved ones in the Dec. 24, 1913, Italian Hall Tragedy. The Houghton Keweenaw County Genealogical Society wondered what became of those families and decided to trace the history, before and after the tragedy, of each family. Here are some samples of their memorials:

Memorial for Katarina Gregorich of Centennial Heights, who was 10 years old when she perished in the Italian Hall disaster.

Photos of the Heikkinen family, who lost three sons in the Italian Hall tragedy on Dec. 24, 1913. The youngest of the three, Edwin, was born on Dec. 24 and was about to celebrate his seventh birthday.

An excerpt from the story of the Heikkinen family.

Historic photo, "The Italian Hall in Mourning, the Next Day After Disaster," by J.W. Nara, part of the Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical collections.

Finnish American Buildings and Landscapes in Michigan's Copper Country. Photographs by Ryan Holt, with Historical Narrative by Arnold R. Alanen.

Sauna of the Erkkila family at Big Traverse Bay fishing settlement. This sauna, with a fish smokehouse on the right and a net reel in the background, was part of the fishing enterprise established by Ernest Erkkila in the 1920s and continued by his sons Reino and Edwin into the 1980s.

The Maronen Log School, now in Alston, made of unusually large, hand-hewn logs. From the Laird Township Historical Society Museum, which is currently not open to the public. 

These are just a few examples from the Carnegie Museum's current exhibits. See all at the Carnegie's Night at the Museum tomorrow, Sept. 21!