The Lower Harbor Ore Dock is the more decorative of Marquette's two great iron ore docks — a massive concrete-and-steel structure that once loaded iron ore from the Marquette Range onto Great Lakes freighters bound for the steel mills of Detroit, Cleveland, and Gary. Built in 1932 and decommissioned in 1971, it stands in silhouette against the lake, illuminated at night.
You can walk the trails along the lake at its base and get a sense of the scale. The Upper Harbor dock, a few miles north, is still in active use loading taconite. Together the two docks define Marquette's industrial identity.