You are here

Old Marquette City Hall

-A A +A
1893–1894, Lovejoy and Demar. 220 W. Washington St.
  • (Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

This monumental government building is a blend of Second Empire, Renaissance Revival, and Richardsonian Romanesque styles. Constructed by Emil Bruce in red brick and purplish-brown sandstone after designs by a Marquette firm, it must have seemed at the time to deny the pervading economic depression and express a confidence in the future of the iron hills and iron industry. Above a recessed round-arched entrance, a central mansard hipped roof lends civic presence to the three-story, hipped-roof, boxlike building. During the Panic of 1893, Mayor Nathan M. Kaufman, known locally as a “capitalist and progressive,” convinced the city council and citizens to issue bonds to build a city hall with local labor and local materials, thereby putting some Marquette men back to work.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
×

Data

What's Nearby

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Old Marquette City Hall", [Marquette, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-MQ10.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 509-509.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,