Our History

Marinette’s Logging and Heritage Festival celebrates the richness of Marinette’s lumbering history. Marinette’s foremost lumberman, Isaac “Ike”” Stephenson (1829 to 1919), who Stephenson Island was named after, was a United States Senator (1906 to 1914). A museum marks the site where logs floated down the Menominee River and were sorted, scaled and sawed. The last drive on this famous and important lumbering river in the Upper Great Lakes was in 1917.

On the corner of the Interstate Bridge stands the Stephenson Public Library, a neo-classical architectural gem, built at the beginning of the century from funds donated by Isaac Stephenson. How fitting and proud it is that Marinette should honor the heritage of the past. Many homes along Riverside Avenue and State Street were built by other Marinette lumbering and retailing families before World War I (1917 to 1918). The first generation lumbering families such as the Stephensons, Carneys, and Merrymans came in the middle decades of the 19th century and primarily cut the white pine. Families such as the Wells in Menominee and the Goodmans in Marinette specialized in cutting the hardwoods.

Donations

Marinette's “Logging and Heritage Festival” is a non-profit, multi- event run by volunteers. Donations for the festival go to pay for expenses such as: tents, portable toilets, entertainment, advertising, and other bands for the parade, bike and car show, and children’s ice-cream give-aways. The City of Marinette pays for the children's inflatable bouncers and fireworks. The festival is also a vehicle for many non-profit service groups from the surrounding counties and areas to raise money for their respective causes. 

Thank you for your donations!

Any donations can be sent to:
Marinette Logging and Heritage Festival
Marinette City Hall
1905 Hall Avenue
Marinette, Wisconsin 54143