RailTrailWxRailTrailWxRail trail guide
Marquette County, MI
A 5.81 mile rail trail in MI.
Connecting trails: Iron Ore Heritage Trail
Planning a ride? Check the hourly forecast.
The Marquette City Multi Use Path is the paved spine of Marquette's trail network, and this segment is its best-known stretch: about six miles of asphalt running north along the Lake Superior shoreline from downtown Marquette to Presque Isle Park. The route strings together Mattson Lower Harbor Park, McCarty's Cove, Shiras Park and Clark Lambros Beach Park, passes the LS&I ore dock at the Upper Harbor, and finishes with a loop around Presque Isle Park. The path is almost always in sight of the water as bikers, walkers, runners, and inline skaters enjoy their outings, especially on summer evenings.
Presque Isle, the wooded peninsula anchoring the north end of this path, carries roughly 7,000 years of indigenous use before European settlement, and in 1886 Congress transferred it to the City of Marquette for a public park. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. visited in 1891 and urged that the ground be left alone, advice the city has largely followed. What grew up along the shoreline instead was iron. The Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad ran ore down from the Marquette Range to the shores of Lake Superior, and its dock at the Upper Harbor, first built in 1911 as the railroad's terminus, still loads freighters beside the trail. The Lower Harbor dock downtown no longer ships ore and now serves as a city landmark. The path itself began in 1971 as a short strip from Fair Avenue to Presque Isle along Lakeshore Boulevard, pushed through by resident Holly Greer, who collected 1,500 signatures after nearly striking a child on a bicycle on that same road. It was later named for her. The city has since extended the network west and south to Harvey, tying it into the Iron Ore Heritage Trail and the North Country Trail. Lake Superior forced the most recent rebuild: an October 2019 storm and the surges that followed destroyed the road and multiuse path between Pine and Hawley streets, and the city moved both 300 feet inland, finishing that phase in October 2020.
Hour by hour scores for heat, wind, rain, and shade on Marquette City Multi Use Path.
Free account required for most trails. Pine Creek is free for everyone.
Managed by City of Marquette
