Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in Michigan, having been named in 1668 by Jesuit missionary and explorer Fr. Jacques Marquette. So it's fitting that in 1968 a 210-foot tower was built by the Catholic Church to honor early missionaries of the area.

Built as Shrine of the Missionaries, the tower was to be part of a never-completed shrine to Catholic missionaries of the Upper Peninsula. It was built on the site of Marquette's first log home and chapel in a modernist style.

With constant design changes, the cost of the tower ballooned to nearly $1 million, well over the initial $50,000 estimate.

Having been conceived as a monument to history and a tourist attraction, the church planned to recoup the cost by charging $1 per visitor. But the church was experiencing financial problems and

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