The Oddest Building in All the U.P.

Sault Ste. Marie — The tallest building in the U.P. is a 210-foot concrete tower. Rising above the small city on the northern border, it’s not clear at all what it is from a distance. Perhaps it’s part of some shipping equipment or docking mechanism. Maybe a leftover pillar from a long-defunct mining operation. What it is isn’t clear from a distance and only becomes less so as you approach on Portage Avenue.

In a strange way, the nearer you get, the more confounding the grand structure becomes. It’s not rusting or in a state of disrepair. It isn’t a clean square or anything factory-like. And it’s not one pillar but actually a collection of brutal blocks with a series of asymmetrical platforms sitting atop the concrete arms stretching toward the sky.

Surrounded by two-story houses dwarfed in comparison and looming over St. Mary’s, the oldest Catholic congregation in the oldest city in Michigan, is the Tower of History.

This strange building was built in 1968 by the quaint little church next door. It was originally conceived of as the Shrine of the Missionaries. The aim was to feature the tower as part of a larger complex which would include a community center and a new church with the goal of telling the story of the early missionaries who came to this northern part of the country. Things didn’t go according to plan, the church decided to put their money elsewhere, and eventually abandoned the project. In 1980, the Shrine of the Missionaries was donated to the Sault Historic Sites and was reframed and renamed The Tower of History.

The Tower of History still tells the story of the missionaries, but it also tells other stories. Down the stairs, through the glass doors, at the base of the tower where you pay for your tickets before hopping in the elevator are exhibits and glass cases filled with artifacts and models which help tell the story of the area. There are arrowheads and other artifacts which speak to American Indian history. There are details about the settling of the city, facts about the global impact of the locks, little models, displays, and a room where a historical video is shown on a loop for any and all who wish to see.

The elevator to the top of the tower runs back and forth, from the bottom to the top, all day long. There’s only one stop at the top where there are a few other plaques and informational menus detailing various facts about the city and the history of what was there before.

The real reason to come to the Tower of History, however, isn’t really the display cases or the fact sheets. It’s the view. There are banks of windows large enough to give anyone of pretty much any height an incredible 360-degree view of both the Michigan Sault Ste. Marie and the Canadian version. There’s a door that exits to a stairway and a lower outdoor platform. On the other side of the tower there’s a long stairway which leads to a second higher outdoor platform which is certainly the best and highest spot in the city on a pleasant day.

Up North, we don’t really see our cities from above. That sounds weird, right? But how would we? Most of us don’t fly little planes into our towns up here and there aren’t any skyscrapers or tall apartment buildings. So how would we ever see our towns from above? We don’t. It’s a strange fact to notice, and I only realized it as I, from the top of the tower, watched a freighter slowly moving through the locks.

The Tower of History is a strange little quirk of history. Started as Shrine of the Missionaries, abandoned and reframed, unabashedly modern and almost brutalist in its design, taller than anything else around, it might be one of the oddest buildings in all the U.P. But people come to see it and go up in it. Tom, the guy working the desk down the bottom, told me that they welcome 18,000 visitors every year, and I don’t doubt the number. As we pulled up to the tower so did two tour busses filled with retirees with southern accents. He was unsurprised and told me these groups come from all over the country all summer long.

The Soo is a blue-collar place. It’s a get-the-job-done kind of place. There aren’t any golden beaches; there are the locks. There aren’t sailboats; there are freighters. There are vintage signs and old buildings but there aren’t traditionally beautiful vistas of natural beauty. A view of Canada means not a view of pine forest and crystal lakes but a view of Algoma Steel and all the industrial dystopia that goes along with that.

The view from the top of the Tower of History however is beautiful. Looking southeast beyond the city, the hills and the trees fill out again. Looking north into Canada, your eyes reach beyond the industry of Algoma Steel. Everything always seems to look a little brighter from above after all. The imperfections and unfortunate things fade as our eyes can’t make out the details so far away.

Looking down at the neighborhood below, you see the upstairs windows on the houses, the lawnmowers out of gas in the back, kids on their bikes in the street. Cars slowly coming down Portage Avenue, little dots moving across the street. All the people with their stories going wherever they are going. The moving of the modern world in the form of an iron behemoth through the locks, the clear blue sky on a sunny day.

It’s the best view in the Soo.