Mines and mills. Side by side, scattered around the white exhibit space are photos of towns across the Upper Peninsula.
Images of functioning logging operations and busy people are contrasted by empty buildings overtaken by autumn leaves and deserted, overgrown pathways. Each of these is a ghost town.
“We have two missions. One is to celebrate the history and culture in the U.P. Our other mission is to be a laboratory for students.”
In his ninth year as director of the Beaumier Upper Peninsula Heritage Center, Dan Truckey continues to extend his passion for history into exhibits open to students and the community.
The “Remnants: Ghost Towns of the Upper Peninsula” exhibit opened Saturday, Sept. 24 in the Beaumier center which moved to its new location in Gries Hall in April.
Truckey hopes that their new location will encourage more students to take the opportunity to stop by. He believes that this exhibit will grant students a better appreciation for the places they have either grown up near or just driven past without giving a second thought.
“Coming to see this exhibit in particular will give students a better idea of what the U.P. is about whether they are from here or not,” Truckey said.
A map of the Upper Peninsula sprawls across the majority of the exhibit floor. Numbers corresponding to panels hung around the room mark the locations of the ghost towns.
“Remnants” showcases 15 ghost towns in total—one from each county within the Upper Peninsula. The large project was condensed into just five months of work. Truckey gives a lot of the credit to the students working on the project with him and said without them, he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.
“Having new younger people who are enthusiastic and have new ideas helps me see new perspectives,” Truckey added.
Senior Riley Crawford who was in charge of graphic design for the exhibit, said he is proud of the sheer quantity of information everyone working on the exhibit had to collect.
Many of the modern images displayed at the exhibit including the drone footage projected onto the wall were gathered by Truckey.
The older ones come from historical societies or personal collections, explained Elizabeth Fust, a junior majoring in English writing and the programming assistant at the Beaumier.
“It took a lot of research. A lot of books came through the LRC… a lot of trips with stacks of books,” said Fust gesturing to give an idea at just how tall the stacks were.
Along with gathering research, Fust wrote up the small summaries on each town for the panels placed around the exhibit room. Although they’ve only been working actively on the project for five months, these exhibits are planned years in advance she said.
“It was an amazing exhibit to work on.”
“Remnants” is scheduled to run until Jan. 7, 2017. Admission is free and everyone is encouraged to pass through.
