Local businesses celebrate 906 Day
MARQUETTE COUNTY — September 6th is now known as 906 Day in the Upper Peninsula. 906 Day was named several years ago in honor of the UP’s 906 area code, and it has become a day to celebrate everything that makes the Upper Peninsula special.
Businesses all over the UP put on special events and promotions in honor of the day. Irontown Pasties in Negaunee celebrated with a special deal on the UP delicacy, and the owner told us what makes 906 day special to them.
“What we’re offering today is a pasty, a soda, and your choice of either a small coleslaw or a small gravy for $9.06, nothing more, nothing less,” explained Irontown Pasties owner John Cizek. “The Yoopers are very proud people, so anywhere you go in the world, if you see a 906 everybody will know what that means. I’ve relocated here and I’ve lived in a lot of different places, and I can’t see living anywhere else.”
For others, 906 Day is a representation of the unity people from the Upper Peninsula share.
“The UP is great people,” said Kurt Freudenstein of Getz’s Clothiers. “I’ve moved around a little bit, and I can tell you that the UP is really good, salt of the earth people that truly care and love each other. You don’t see that in bigger cities, so to me it just celebrates togetherness and caring about one another more or less.”
One local business, Yooper Shirts, has their own 906 designs all year long to encourage the Upper Peninsula to embrace its uniqueness and history.
“906 Day is special for us because it has some personal meaning for our owner, but also it’s a registered design that we have here,” said Tony Pelletier of Yooper Shirts. “And so we want to help people embrace the fact they live in the UP and have a way to celebrate it. Having just the one area code is very unique, so I think people have embraced that. And for us it’s one of our signature designs, and I think that wearing clothing to show it is a way to do that.”
906 Day is becoming more well–known every year, and with more and more businesses and organizations getting involved, it will certainly be an important day in UP culture for years to come.