Old City Orphanage

Formerly known as the Holy Cross Orphanage, built in 1915 and abandoned in the mid-1960s. The Catholic orphanage operated for nearly 50 years, housing children who faced difficult circumstances.

The Old City Orphanage in Marquette, formerly known as the Holy Family Orphanage, was constructed between 1914 and 1915 on a hilltop overlooking the city. The first occupants were sixty Native American children and eight nuns. From its opening in 1915 until its closure in 1965, the orphanage provided care to hundreds of children, though former residents who survived to adulthood would later describe that care in far darker terms. Former occupants have claimed the nuns were mentally and physically abusive, administering cruel and extreme punishments to the children in their charge.

Two stories from the orphanage stand out for their brutality. One account tells of a little girl who went outside to play during a fierce Upper Peninsula blizzard. Because she stayed out too long, perhaps inadequately dressed for the cold, the girl caught pneumonia and died. As a warning to the other children, the nuns reportedly put the dead girl's body on display in the lobby for all the orphans to see. The other story involves a boy who was beaten to death by a nun, his body hidden in the basement.

People walking through the cemetery near the former orphanage have reported discovering a large hole in the ground near the gravesite created for the boy. Around the same time that someone first reported the hole to cemetery staff, sightings began of a glowing green light in the orphanage basement, the same basement where the boy's body was allegedly concealed. Eventually, the green glow disappeared on its own, and the hole in the ground was found neatly filled and covered with flowers, as though someone, or something, had tended to the grave.

The orphanage building was converted into the Grandview Apartments, a fifty-six-unit residential complex operated by Community Action Alger-Marquette, with renovation work completed in mid-2018. Many residents have reported hearing the disembodied sounds of children laughing or crying within the walls of their apartments, witnessing glowing orbs and flickering lights, and experiencing other unexplained phenomena. One woman who snuck into the building before the renovation saw an empty baby carriage roll across the floor by itself. In the lobby where the dead girl was displayed, sounds of children crying are still heard. In the basement where the boy's body was hidden, residents and visitors have reported seeing a glowing green orb hovering above what appears to be a medical-style table.

Michigan's official tourism website lists the Old City Orphanage among the Upper Peninsula's most haunted locations, and US Ghost Adventures has documented the building's history of institutional cruelty and its paranormal aftermath. The children of Holy Family Orphanage suffered in life and, if the reports are accurate, their suffering has not ended.