HOPStoberfest Raises a Glass to Port Huron History
Port Huron Museums will turn its historic Carnegie Museum into a Michigan craft beverage tasting room Oct. 16, with proceeds supporting four museum sites, local collections and ongoing preservation work.
PORT HURON, Mich. — A fall beer tasting in Port Huron will do more than sample Michigan brews. Money raised at this year’s HOPStoberfest will help maintain a 1904 Carnegie building, Michigan’s oldest lighthouse, the last operating lightship on the Great Lakes and a railroad depot tied to Thomas Edison.
Port Huron Museums will hold its annual HOPStoberfest Beer Tasting Fundraiser from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, at the Carnegie Museum, 1115 Sixth St. The adults-only event combines Michigan craft beverages with live music, games, food, and access to the museum’s exhibits.
General admission is $30, while Port Huron Museums members pay $25. A $20 designated-driver ticket includes admission to the activities but no alcoholic beverages. All attendees, including designated drivers, must be at least 21.
General and member admission includes six drink tickets. Attendees can purchase additional tickets during the evening.
Michigan beverages meet museum exhibits
HOPStoberfest will feature beverages from Michigan producers, with beer joined by cider, mead, and hard seltzer. Port Huron Museums had not announced a final brewery lineup or food truck roster as of early October.
The Blitztones will provide live music. Oktoberfest games, yard games, photo opportunities and brewery passports are also planned.
Unlike a conventional beer festival, visitors can move through the Carnegie Museum while sampling beverages and viewing exhibits.
That setting connects the social event directly to the organization it supports.
The Carnegie building began as Port Huron’s public library and was dedicated in 1904. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie helped fund its construction as part of his nationwide campaign to establish public libraries. The building served as a library for more than six decades before becoming home to the Port Huron Museum.
The museum organization was founded in 1967 and opened in the former library the following year.
Fundraiser supports four historic locations
Port Huron Museums says all proceeds from HOPStoberfest will support the care, maintenance, preservation and operation of its four museum locations, along with its collections of artifacts, artwork and archival material.
Those sites span several chapters of Blue Water Area history.
The Thomas Edison Depot Museum occupies the former Grand Trunk Railway depot built in 1858. As a young newsboy, Edison worked from the depot between 1859 and 1863 while trains linked Port Huron with Detroit and Canada. The museum opened there in 2001 and focuses on Edison’s early years and experiments.
The HURON Lightship, permanently moored along the St. Clair River at Pine Grove Park, represents a different period of Great Lakes transportation.
Lightships served as floating lighthouses where constructing a permanent tower was impractical. HURON served for more than 50 years and was the last operating lightship on the Great Lakes, retiring in 1970. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
The museum also operates programs at the Fort Gratiot Light Station, where the present lighthouse tower dates to 1829.
It replaced an earlier lighthouse that collapsed during a storm in 1828. The surviving tower, later raised to 82 feet, is considered Michigan’s oldest lighthouse and remains an active aid to navigation at the entrance to the St. Clair River.
Work also continues at the nearby Fort Gratiot Post Hospital, the only surviving building from the former military fort and the oldest wooden structure in St. Clair County.
Historic buildings bring continuing costs
Maintaining such properties requires more than keeping museum galleries open.
Port Huron Museums has spent years restoring and updating its sites. For example, the Fort Gratiot Light Station entered a long-term restoration effort after St. Clair County took ownership in 2010. Museum tours resumed there in 2012.
At the Carnegie Museum, a major renovation campaign launched in 2016 restored the former library’s architectural features while upgrading its electrical, heating, cooling, and flooring systems. The building reopened in 2017 after that phase of work.
HOPStoberfest turns those preservation expenses into a public night out.
Visitors can sample Michigan beverages in a building that has served Port Huron for more than 120 years while helping support several other historic properties along the St. Clair River.
HOPStoberfest runs from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, at the Port Huron Museums Carnegie Museum, 1115 Sixth St. Free parking is available. Tickets are nonrefundable.
