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Marquette is the county seat and largest city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, located on Lake Superior shores as a major iron ore shipping port from the Marquette Iron Range. Named after French Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, the city had a population of 20,629 in the 2020 census and ranks as the third-largest American city on Lake Superior behind Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. Development began in 1844 when William Burt and Jacob Houghton discovered iron deposits, leading to the formation of the Jackson Mining Company in 1845 and the Marquette Iron Company on September 14, 1849, which established the village. The city became the leading Upper Peninsula shipping center during the 1850s through rail links to mines, grew to over 1,600 residents by 1862, and gained fame as a summer resort destination in the late 19th century. Today, Marquette is home to Northern Michigan University, whose Division I men's ice hockey team won the national championship in 1991. Escanaba is a port city and county seat of Delta County in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, located on Little Bay de Noc with a 2020 population of 12,450, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie. The city's name derives from the Ojibwa language and roughly translates to "land of the red buck," reflecting the indigenous tribes including the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Menominee who inhabited the area. Founded in 1863 as a port town by surveyor Eli P. Royce, Escanaba's early economy centered on lumber processing and harvesting, followed by iron ore shipping from the Marquette, Menominee, and Gogebic Ranges, which became crucial to Union logistics during the American Civil War and later industrial development across the Midwest. The Sand Point Lighthouse, constructed between fall 1867 and spring 1868 at a cost of $11,000, marked the city's growth as a major shipping hub that remained vital for iron ore exports until 2017. Today, Escanaba's largest employer is a paper mill operated alongside the Escanaba River, which was sold from Verso Corporation to Billerud in 2022, and the city experiences a humid continental climate with warm summers and severely cold winters. Sault Ste. Marie is a city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the county seat of Chippewa County, with a population of 13,337 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populated city in the region behind Marquette. Founded in 1668 by French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette, it is Michigan's oldest city and one of the oldest European settlements in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains. Located along the St. Marys River, which connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron and forms the U.S.-Canada border, Sault Ste. Marie is situated across from the larger Canadian city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, connected by the International Bridge and adjacent to the Soo Locks that enable ship travel between Lake Superior and the Lower Great Lakes. The city became an important fur trade center in the 18th century and is home to Lake Superior State University.