To the editor:

A recent letter commented on Keweenaw National Historical Park's Union Building project in Calumet.

We are pleased to say that we are moving the project forward with great alacrity, especially considering the scale of both the rehabilitation of the rich interior spaces and of the exhibit it will house. The design team has hosted several public meetings to discuss the project, with an enthusiastic response.

The Recovery Act has funded the design phase of the project. Additional National Park Service funding is expected to fund the two-floor exhibit rehabilitation and construction. The ornate third floor, once home to a Masonic Lodge, will be rehabilitated as a traditional meeting space for community use.

The exhibit, "Risk and Resilience in a Copper Mining Community," looks mostly at the social side of the Copper Country story. For much of the region's history, people coming to the Keweenaw took considerable risks and demonstrated resilience in equal measure. Emigrating from foreign lands to work in a dangerous occupation required people to take chances and weather harsh conditions. The amount of labor, technology and capital required to extract the Keweenaw's world-class copper left an enduring legacy on the land, communities, economy, and people of the region. An important component of Keweenaw National Historical Park's mission, the exhibit will tell this story through artifacts, oral histories and photographs.

The exhibit will tell the story from the perspectives of those who lived here. Immigration, religion, the Strike of 1913 and the Italian Hall, mining, education, home life, fraternal organizations, healthcare and recreation are all aspects of Calumet's history that will be explored. Dozens of artifacts, as diverse as an early 1900s fishing creel, a C&H employee badge, a "Save Italian Hall" button, and a trunk used by an immigrant family, are needed to bring this exhibit to life. The design team has developed a list of needs; it can be found at: nps.gov/kewe.

Gazette readers with an interest in telling this history and who have items they believe would and should reveal an aspect of it in this exhibit, are asked to please contact Curator Brian Hoduski or Archivist Jeremiah Mason at 337-3168.

In the manner of the local/federal partnership that is Keweenaw National Historical Park, together the community and the National Park Service can bring to Calumet another important historical attraction that tells this nationally important local story.

Jim Corless

Superintendent

Keweenaw National Historical Park