This monumental government building is a blend of Second Empire, Renaissance Revival, and Richardsonian Romanesque styles. Constructed by Emil Bruce in red brick and purplish-brown sandstone after designs by a Marquette firm, it must have seemed at the time to deny the pervading economic depression and express a confidence in the future of the iron hills and iron industry. Above a recessed round-arched entrance, a central mansard hipped roof lends civic presence to the three-story, hipped-roof, boxlike building. During the Panic of 1893, Mayor Nathan M. Kaufman, known locally as a “capitalist and progressive,” convinced the city council and citizens to issue bonds to build a city hall with local labor and local materials, thereby putting some Marquette men back to work.