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

30 years ago

HOUGHTON — Wal-Mart is coming to Houghton. The city council has given its OK to financing plans for a 95,000 square-foot store on M-26. Total project cost is estimated at $4.4 million. City Manager Ray Kestner said closing will be completed within 30-45 days and construction will then begin “immediately.” The Houghton City Council cleared the way Wednesday for the giant retailer by approving $600,000 in “creative financing” for public services to the site. The council also approved the same $600,000 arrangement for a Holiday Foods store just north of Pamida store. The council’s decision regarding Wal-Mart is the latest evidence of the retail giant’s expansion in the Upper Peninsula. Wal-Mart recently finalized an agreement to buy 25 acres west of Marquette. Kestner said the plans call for the developers to pay for the improvements, then be paid back through lower tax bills over a nine-year period. “Typically, we would bond the roads, sewers, and other amenities,” Kestner said. Plans call for M-26 to be widened to five lanes in front of both developments with stoplights installed at both locations. Kestner said the arrangements are beneficial to the city because it won’t detract from the city’s bonding capacity.

60 years ago

LAKE SUPERIOR — The Ice Committee of the Lake Carriers Association heard reports today on the condition of the Great Lakes and then set another meeting for next Tuesday. Harold Burke of the U.S. Weather Bureau said warm winds and higher temperatures of the last few days had melted about two-thirds of the three-foot snow covering on the ice over the upper lakes and that no severe cold weather was in sight for the next four or five days. The ice will not do much melting before the snow is gone, he explained. Lake Superior is 90 percent ice-covered and there is ice two to four feet thick, with heavy windrows, at the Straits of Mackinac, the committee was told. White Fish Bay near the Soo Locks in Lake Superior is covered with ice 36 inches thick, which has a 10-inch snow covering, it was reported. Windrows of ice were reported to be 8 to 10 feet high at some places on the bay.