Marquette Park is a landscaped park located on Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island is an island and resort area covering in land area, part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European...

 in the U.S. state of Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. It is part of Mackinac Island State Park

Mackinac Island State Park

Mackinac Island State Park is a state park located on Mackinac Island in the U.S. state of Michigan. The island park encompasses 2.81 mi² , which is approximately 74% of the island's total area of 3.78 mi² . The park is also within the boundaries of the city of Mackinac Island and has permanent...

 and stands on the edge of Mackinac Island's harbor on the Round Island Channel

Round Island Channel

The Round Island Channel is a navigable Lake Huron waterway located between Mackinac Island and Round Island in the Straits of Mackinac. It forms a key link in the lake freighter route between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, on which millions of tons of taconite iron ore are shipped annually...

 and just east of downtown Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island, Michigan

Mackinac Island is a city in Mackinac County in the U.S. state of Michigan. In the 2010 census, the city had a permanent population of 492, although there are thousands more seasonal workers and tourists during the summer months. From 1818–1882, the city was the county seat of the former...

.

History

When Fort Mackinac

Fort Mackinac

Fort Mackinac is a former American military outpost garrisoned from the late 18th century to the late 19th century near Michilimackinac, Michigan, on Mackinac Island...

 was built in a commanding location on a bluff above Mackinac Island's harbor in 1780-1781, the relatively flat plateau between the bluff and shoreline was set aside for the Fort's use. During the 1800s, the Fort's men used the area as a vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

 garden, growing potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

es and other foodstuffs there to supplement their rations.

After the U.S. Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 ceased to use Fort Mackinac in 1895, the plateau area was redundant. The new Mackinac Island State Park decided to adaptively re-use the former vegetable gaden as a quasi-urban park. The newly-landscaped park was dedicated to Father Jacques Marquette

Jacques Marquette

Father Jacques Marquette S.J. , sometimes known as Père Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan...

 in 1909.

A major planting of varietal lilacs took place in Marquette Park in 1964, and the State Park also in that year installed a replica chapel intended to evoke memories of a pioneer structure erected at Mackinac Island by Jesuit missionaries

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

, including Marquette, in the 1670s. Today, Marquette Park serves as a visual frame for Fort Mackinac and as the site of mile marker 0 on the circular M-185

M-185 (Michigan highway)

M-185 is a state trunkline highway in the U.S. state of Michigan that circles Mackinac Island, a popular tourist destination on the Lake Huron side of the Straits of Mackinac, along the island's shoreline. A narrow paved road of , it offers scenic views of the straits that divide the Upper and the...

. The park serves as a popular tourist destination on the island.