Marquette’s Oldest Surviving Home
This cache brings you to one of the city’s earliest preserved buildings, the Bishop Baraga House. Built in 1853, it became the final home of Bishop Frederic Baraga, the first bishop of the Diocese of Marquette. Baraga spent years traveling across the Upper Great Lakes by canoe, boat, and snowshoe to visit remote communities. He lived among Ojibwe and Odawa people, learning their languages and recording them in writing while carrying out his missionary work.
Long before this house stood here, the Anishinaabe people lived and traveled throughout this region. In the 1850s, Marquette was still a very small settlement where Anishinaabe families, fur traders, and early European settlers interacted regularly. As a brick house, the Bishop Baraga House is one of the few surviving structures from that era, offering a glimpse into the city’s earliest years.
History
Frederic Baraga came to North America from present day Slovenia in 1830. He worked among Native communities across the Great Lakes and published the Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language the same year this home was completed. His original residence once stood behind St. Peter Cathedral on Baraga Avenue and was later moved here to Fourth Street. Baraga passed away in this house in 1868 and is interred in the cathedral crypt.
The Geocache
The cache isn’t on private property, but it’s located in a quiet residential area. Park on Mather Street and walk past the house to the guard rail at the corner of 4th Street and Chamberlain.
CAUTION: There’s a steep drop beyond the guard rail that leads down toward US-41. The container can be reached safely without crossing the rail.