The City of Marquette Office of Arts and Culture has been approved for a $100,000 Our Town award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the Cultural Trail (Trail). This is one of 51 grants nationwide the agency has approved in this category to support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, and/or social outcomes.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the nation with these grants, including the City of Marquette, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”
The Trail will honor and preserve our City’s diverse cultural heritage, history, and environment from the mouth of the Carp River to Presque Isle, through public space design, public art, and interpretive signage. The seven mile Trail will connect and give voice to the multiple stories, historic sites, natural features, and landmarks along the City’s multi-use pathway. Education will serve as the central mission, providing a platform to build cultural understanding and a shared vision of the future. This project is led by the City’s Office of Arts and Culture in cooperation with arts, history, cultural, environmental, tribal, educational, and economic institutions.

This Superior Watershed Partnership assisted with the successful grant proposal. For more information on the projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.