EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference desk staff at Peter White Public Library.

30 years ago

MARQUETTE — The four separate events that have emerged from the Upper Peninsula’s newfound love for sled dog racing will come together as a series this winter offering an additional $5,000 in prize money. Organizers of the U.P. 200/Midnight Run, Munising to Gwinn Race, St. Ignace Sled Dog Enduro and Calumet Copper Classic have agreed to combine the races into one competitive series called the U.P. Challenge. Teams that compete in all four events would evenly divide the $5,000 purse. “The key is that you don’t have to win each race,” said Kathy Morrow of Gwinn, a member of the committee that oversees the 100-mile Munising to Gwinn Race. “All you have to do is enter and finish each race.” The Challenge’s prize money will be awarded in addition to purses for individual races–$10,000 for the Munising-Gwinn race (Jan. 22-23); $6,000 for the Enduro (Jan. 29 and 30); $25,000 for the U.P. 200/Midnight Run (Feb. 17-21); and $2,000 for the Calumet Copper Classic (March 5 and 6).

60 years ago

MARQUETTE — The first case of Dutch elm disease ever reported in Marquette County came to light yesterday afternoon. Mel Nyquist, Marquette, county extension director, received word from the State Agriculture Department’s Dutch Elm Disease Control Laboratory in Lansing that a case of the disease was confirmed in a sample of an elm tree sent to the laboratory for analysis. Dutch elm disease is caused by a fungus that kills native elms. The only other case of the disease found in the Upper Peninsula was reported in Menominee County last year in a load of firewood from a farmer brought from Illinois to Carney. “Unless effective control measures are undertaken, the disease could damage all other elm trees in Marquette in a short time,” Nyquist said. The first elms known to die of Dutch elm disease in Michigan were found in Detroit during the summer of 1950. To keep the disease from spreading in a community, the first infections must be found soon after they occur, and control measures must be promptly applied. Necessary control measures require a program of sanitation and spraying over an indefinite period of time. Many trees die in the same season that infection occurs-some are killed within only a few weeks.