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

30 years ago

ISHPEMING — As U.S. mailman Don Larson delivers another stack of census questionnaires, staff at the U.S. Census Bureau’s Upper Peninsula office is measuring its mail in feet. On Tuesday the office received 47 feet of completed census questionnaires and today it received 29. Arlin Violetta, who manages the district office in Ishpeming, said that more than 125,000 questionnaires were mailed throughout the Upper Peninsula late last week, with instructions to either mail the forms back or hold onto them. Households told to keep the forms are visited by an enumerator. Forms to be mailed back are concentrated in predetermined areas such as Marquette, Escanaba, Houghton-Hancock and Ironwood. All information provided on census questionnaires is confidential, said Violetta. “When forms come in, they are mechanically opened and go into a scanner which puts a piece of black tape over the name before it discharges it, so nobody at the census office even sees the name.” Census figures are used to apportion representatives for state and local governments, estimate funding for federal and state projects, and by private industry for demographics and other research.

90 years ago

NEGAUNEE — A convincing demonstration of progress in physical education in Negaunee schools was offered in the high school gymnasium last night when the calendar exhibit comprising 12 novelty dance numbers, was given by pupils from the first to eighth grades, inclusive, under the direction of E.W. Shadford and Miss Bernice Fraser, directors of physical education.