Qualla: Marquette Branch Prison https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:18 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Marquette Branch Prison https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison Marquette Branch Prison: Introduction https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison/ Photo credit William H Israel, Public domain. On February 2, 1954, the Detroit Red Wings -- Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, Terry Sawchuk, and the rest of a team that would win the Stanley Cup two months later -- drove to a prison in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and played hockey outdoors against inmates. The temperature was around 21 degrees. After the first period, the Red Wings led 18-0, and the officials stopped keeping score. For the remaining two periods, players from both sides shuffled teams. It was the first outdoor game involving an NHL team, decades before the league turned the concept into the Winter Classic spectacle. And it happened inside the walls of the Marquette Branch Prison, a Romanesque sandstone fortress that has sat on the south shore of Lake Superior since 1889.

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Image: William H Israel | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/f03b-marquette-branch-prison-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Marquette Branch Prison: Built for the Upper Peninsula https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison/ Photo credit William H Israel, Public domain. By the late 19th century, Michigan's Upper Peninsula was booming. Copper and iron mining had drawn thousands of workers, and with population growth came a rising number of criminal convictions. Transporting prisoners from the Upper Peninsula to the state prisons at Ionia and Jack...

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Image: William H Israel | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/f03b-marquette-branch-prison-built-for-the-upper-peninsula.mp3 0:06 2 full Marquette Branch Prison: The Night the Warden Fell https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison/ Photo credit William H Israel, Public domain. On the evening of December 11, 1921, three convicts -- Arthur "Gypsy Bob" Harper, Jasper Perry, and Charles Roberts -- attacked Warden Theodore Catlin, Deputy Warden Fred Menhennett, Menhennett's son Arthur, and prison guard Charles Anderson in the prison's movie theater. The wea...

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Image: William H Israel | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/f03b-marquette-branch-prison-the-night-the-warden-fell.mp3 0:06 3 full Marquette Branch Prison: Hockey Behind the Walls https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison/ Photo credit William H Israel, Public domain. The idea for the 1954 hockey game originated during a summer visit to the prison sponsored by Stroh Brewing Company. Red Wings general manager Jack Adams and captain Ted Lindsay toured the facility, and Adams casually agreed to bring the team for a game -- not realizing the priso...

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Image: William H Israel | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/f03b-marquette-branch-prison-hockey-behind-the-walls.mp3 0:06 4 full Marquette Branch Prison: Still Standing on the Shore https://qualla.com/marquette-branch-prison/ Photo credit William H Israel, Public domain. Marquette Branch Prison was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the State House of Correction and Branch Prison on November 23, 1977. Today it holds approximately 1,100 inmates in maximum and minimum-security housing, staffed by 282 custody personnel and 145 sup...

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Image: William H Israel | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/f/0/3/b/marquette-branch-prison-wp/f03b-marquette-branch-prison-still-standing-on-the-shore.mp3 0:06 5 full