Bay Area Historical Society moves to focus on Silver Bay history

The Bay Area Historical Society has moved its Silver Bay archives into Room 10 in the Mary MacDonald Building, a shift that lets the group spend less time running the Visitor Center and more time preserving local history. The change also moves the society closer to the practical work of cataloging artifacts, school yearbooks and community records that have long been part of its collection.

Founded by residents in 1986, the society’s mission is to collect, preserve and share knowledge about the history of Silver Bay, Beaver Bay and the surrounding area, while linking that story to Lake County and Minnesota history. Its longtime space at the Visitor Center across from the city building often led people to think the operation was mainly for tourists, even though the room held a large amount of Silver Bay memorabilia, local school yearbooks and area-themed items that served residents as much as visitors.

Daily Visitor Center operations were pulling limited staff and volunteers away from the society’s core preservation work. An August 7, 2024 planning and zoning notice described the group’s planned use of the space as archival storage of community-held artifacts, a workroom and storage for excess Visitor Center merchandise. The Best of the North Shore has taken over management of the Visitor Center, and the historical society has been invited to keep displaying artifacts there even though a formal reopening date has not been set.

The Mary MacDonald Building itself has also been under broader review. City and county planning has included maintenance discussions and a facility condition assessment proposal from Krause Anderson Construction, and Lake County planned to end its lease at the Mary MacDonald Center effective June 30, 2026.

The society marked the shift with a Bay Days open house in its new space. The Bay Days schedule listed the research room at the Mary MacDonald Building, 99 Edison Boulevard, open Friday, July 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with another vendor table downtown Saturday, July 11. The group has also been rotating displays with the Silver Bay Public Library, where exhibits have featured local cookbooks, buttons, Rocky Taconite memorabilia and items from Northshore Mining.

The society says Rocky was dedicated on October 10, 1964 by Dr. E.W. Davis, and that Silver Bay resident Louis M. Stefanich won the naming contest. A move to his current location in 1990 made the figure more visible.