Michigan/Delta County Collections

The Escanaba Public Library has an extensive Michigan collection containing books, magazines and videos about our Great Lakes State. The history section has a special emphasis on the Upper Peninsula. In addition, the collections of the Delta County Genealogical Society are housed at the library. Their materials are a rich resource for those researching family history, especially for those whose family is from Delta County.

Library patrons also have access to digitized historical images from the UPLINK Collection. 

The library has received a donation of over 1,289 Nautical Charts from Dr. Richard Fink. This large collection includes charts covering parts of the Great Lakes, U.S. East Coast, and West Coast, Canadian Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Gulf, Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Caribbean & West Indies, Atlantic Island, Mediterranean Sea, English Channel, North Sea, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Oceania. The Nautical Chart Collection can be searched by using the online EPL Charts by Geographic Region and Drawer Location

Our patrons also have access to The Michigan County Histories and Atlases Digitization Project comprised of 428 digitized titles published before 1923. This collection offers all members of the community free keyword searching and page-by-page access to digitized reproductions of Michigan county histories and atlases as a resource for historical and genealogical research. Listed here is a sampling of the materials you’ll find at the library, with a focus on Delta County.

MICHIGAN

  • Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State by Willis F. Dunbar
  • Michigan Place Names: The History of the Founding and the Naming of More than
  • Five Thousand Past and present Michigan Communities by Walter Romig
  • Michigan Through the Centuries by Willis Dunbar (non-circulating)
  • Michigan History Magazine 1917-current (non-circulating)
  • Michigan Pioneer & Historical Society Collections 1874-1929 (non-circulating)

UPPER PENINSULA

  • A History of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan and Its People: Its Mining, Lumber and Agricultural History by Alvah L. Sawyer (published in 1911) (non-circulating)
  • History of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (published in 1883)
  • A Land Apart: A History Anthology of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (non-circulating)
  • Memorial Record of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan (published in 1895) (non-circ.)
  • Michigan Ghost Towns of the Upper Peninsula by R.L. Dodge
  • A Most Superior Land: Life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by Russell McKee
  • An Outline History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula by Russell Magnaghi (non-circ.)
  • Superior Heartland: A Backwoods History by C. Fred Rydholm
  • The Way It Happened: Settling Michigan’s Upper Peninsula by Russel M. Magnaghi

DELTA COUNTY

  • Bark River Centennial, 1871-1971
  • The Century Book 1863-1963 Escanaba
  • Dreams of Beaver Creek by Charles E. Dedic (non-circulating)
  • Escanaba Michigan U.S.A.: The Iron Port of the World by Walter Nursey (non-circ.)
  • An Ethnic History of Delta County
  • Gladstone Centennial History 1887-1987
  • A History of the Garden Peninsula by Thomas E. Jacques
  • Marble Arms: A History of a Gladstone Manufacturing Company
  • Our Heritage: Garden Peninsula 1840-1980
  • Our Heritage: Rapid River, Michigan
  • A Page from the Old Calendar: Tales of Events, Personalities and History of Escanaba and Vicinity by Arol Beck Reflections of the Past: A Pictorial History of Delta,
  • Schoolcraft & Northern Menominee Counties
  • A Souvenir of Delta County, Michigan
  • Station in the Forest by Norma Colburn Terrien (Cornell area)
  • The Story of Ford River Township

ETHNIC GROUPS

  • Ethnic Groups in Michigan
  • Finnish American Lives (video)
  • Indian Names in Michigan by Virgil Vogel
  • Miners, Merchants, and Midwives: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Italians by Russell Magnaghi
  • The People of Michigan by George Graff
  • People of the Three Fires: The Ottawa, Potawatomi and Ojibway of Michigan by James Clifton, George Cornell, and James McClurken
  • Tradition Bearers (video) (Finnish Americans)
  • Scandinavians in Michigan by Christian T. Feddersen

U.P. INDUSTRIES & OCCUPATIONS

  • Good Man in the Woods (video)
  • History of Lumbering in Delta County by Carl J. Sawyer
  • History of Sawmills in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by Carl J. Sawyer
  • When Pine Was King by Lewis C. Reimann

Many of the books on Michigan and Upper Peninsula history listed above have information on farming, logging, and mining industries.

The library maintains vertical files on Escanaba, Delta County and the Upper Peninsula, as well as newspaper indexes and historical newspapers on microfilm.  Ask at the reference desk for assistance in using these files.

Escanaba Public Library