Amasa Historical Society Museum

The city hall, jail, and fire house was "Amasa's Jewel" when finished in 1921. Now it houses an unusually interesting museum, fun to explore on a rainy day. All sorts of stuff is on the first floor: a bottle of Jack Puuakkala's "White Birch Elixir" and advertising for it, an art student's imaginative portraits of local people and quotes from them, an assemblage of perhaps a hundred tiny photos taken on a summer day in 1947. A traveling photographer corralled many townsfolk in everyday wear at bars and at the Fireman's Tournament to get these mug shots of lots of local characters.
You could sit down on a horsehair sofa and spend hours reading Gordon Chandler's handwritten, neatly illustrated "memory book." The interesting narrative depicts his happy boyhood in Amasa from 1911 into the 1920s, when his father was general manager of the Hematite Mercantile Store. For him, moving to suburban Grosse Pointe outside Detroit was clearly a letdown.

The second floor recreates a main street of Amasa businesses in satisfyingly furnished tableaux: a trapper's cabin with woven bark basket and saws; the Amasa Co-operative Grocery, a hub of Finnish communities; a print shop; a barber shop; a condensed church with stained-glass window.

A 2003 visit to the museum, with octogenarian Bea Lange as guide, was just about a perfect museum experience: interesting things, and stories about them told by a smart, funny witness to much of the town's history. Bea's death shortly thereafter was a reminder to take advantage of these wonderful old storytellers while they are still with us.

On Pine Street on the west end of downtown Amasa. Open for holiday weekends. Otherwise call Kelly Mullinax for an appointment: (906) 822-7714. Or check the phone numbers on the door and call from the Rusty Saw Blade down the street. Visits can often be arranged on short notice.
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