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The county is named after Father Frederic Baraga who came to America from
Austria in 1831. French missionaries and traders traveled the southern shore
of Lake Superior westward to Sault Ste Marie, which was also a route traveled
by the Ottawa and Chippewa tribe. The shores of Keweena Bay was a stop for those
traveling Lake Superior. In 1843 Methodist missionaries established a mission
at Zeba. Around the same time Father Frederic Baraga built a Roman Catholic
mission at Assinins. In 1871 the railroad joined the eastern end of Lake
Michigamme to the Bay at L'Anse. It was at L'Anse that they discovered slate,
quartz, sandstone, graphite, and peat. Today the industry includes lumbering,
sand, and gravel. Baraga county has rugged coastlines, historical locales, old
quarries and mines, lumber camps, ghost towns and Indian cemeteries.
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