Explore The Exhibits

Port of Ludington Maritime Museum

Explore The Exhibits

Port of Ludington Maritime Museum

Port of Ludington Maritime

Exhibitions

Port Hole

To The Past

Walk through this portal and discover portholes from the past.

Beckoning

Beacons

Visit The Evolution Of Lighthouse Optics. 

Pere Marquette 21

The Ghost of Captin VanDyke

Peer into the captain’s cabin in the “Texas” on the Pere Marquette 21.

Life

On The Car Ferries

The photographs of Erhardt Peters.

Sulewski

Gallery

View the unique Sulewski Gallery.

Mysteries

Beneath The Waves

Wrecks of the Sunset Coast.

Lumbering Days

On Pere Marquette Lake

Artist Jacob Lunde “got a notion to make a little picture” to use when sharing stories.

Lighthouses Of America

Guiding The Way

View over 150 lighthouse models that include those from the East, West, and Gulf Coasts and the Great Lakes.

70 years Of Service

Coast Guard Ludington

This exhibit explores the personnel of Coast Guard Station Ludington over the 70 years they operated out of what is now the museum building.

Flint & Pere Marquette

Line Steamers

Children can try their hands at loading one of Ward’s steamships as they take their first steps as entrepreneurs.

Pere Marquette

Line Steamers

Try your hand at the wheel of Kitzinger’s steamship Nevada.

Pere Marquette

Railroad Car Ferries

At the turn of the last century, Captain James W. Martin conceived of a new industry at Ludington that would revolutionize crosslake shipping.

Chesapeake & Ohio

Railway Car Ferries

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway took over management of the Pere Marquette Railway in 1928, eventually merging it into its burgeoning railroad in 1947.

Pere Marquette

Piloting The Car Ferries

Head back in time to the pilothouse of the Pere Marquette 22 in the 1930s in this exciting interactive experience like no other.

Paukstis

Theater

Rest and enjoy a variety of short spots and a 15-minute documentary about the legendary shipwreck Alvin Clark.

The Age

Of Sail

Models of Houghton C. Smith JR.

The Legendary

44-Foot Motor Lifeboat

In the late 1950s, the United States Coast Guard sought a replacement for the 36-foot motor lifeboat that had become its workhorse.

Steaming Into

The Future

When the Badger entered service in the spring of 1953 for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, 17 steam-powered train car ferries operated on the Great Lakes, and another eight on the Detroit River.

The

Armistice Day Storm

The Armistice Day Storm, of 1940, killed 154 people, including 64 sailors on Lake Michigan. Now more than eight decades after that fatal day, this exhibit will take you back in time to experience the startling weather systems that converged over the lake causing such disastrous effects.

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More Than 30 Exhibits