Pasty Central Day in History, October 31st
Some early references by Scottish immigrants speak of children going door-to-door on Halloween in disguises as early as 1895 for coins, cakes or fruit. This day in 1899 was the first Halloween celebrated by students at the new Northern State Normal School in Marquette.
The school had been established earlier that year by the Michigan Legislature providing teacher preparation programs in Michigan’s then-wild and sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. When it opened its doors that year there were thirty-two students and six faculty members, utilizing rented rooms in Marquette city hall.
The Normal School would become Northern State Teachers College in 1927, and eventually settled on the name by which we know it today: Northern Michigan University. Pasty Central Day in History, October 31st.