Portage Community Historical Society

The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays ~ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm. The museum is now closed and will reopen the first weekend in May 2023.

If you’d like to join a year’s membership is only $20 for an individual and $50 for a family. For more information about joining the Society, please go to our Membership page.

Thank you for stopping!

The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays ~ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm the first weekend in May,

The first weekend in May until December with special Christmas hours.

Three Peat

Portage makes Basketball History

Courtesy of Ken ClementsCourtesy of Ken Clements

A recap of the three consecutive Portage High School basketball sectional titles 1971-1972-1973

Beginning in 1971 that would change as the school would win three consecutive sectional titles, the only time to date, that has happened in school history. This contribution to the Portage Community Historical Society attempts to cover those three very special seasons.

Contributed by Bob Miller (PHS 1974)

Click here to read

This year marks the 60th year of the Portage community having basketball available for youths of the community.

Youth basketball was started in the fall of 1959 and has been available ever since then.

This article will discuss the beginning of youth basketball, the Biddy Basketball years and the start of the organization known as Portage Youth Basketball.  Readers should recall that in 1959, Portage was not yet a city and the population in the 1960 census was 11,822, about 32% of the 2010 census of 36,828.

 

Read the history of Mick Cavanaugh, broken down into 7 chapters and submitted by Bob Miller

Mission Statement

To bring people together interested in learning about Portage Township history.

Portage History

Portage was incorporated as a town in 1959 and officially became a city in 1968, but its history stretches back much further than that.

And Portage is still growing. Despite the closing and restructuring of many of the area’s steel mills and industries in the nineties, Portage still draws new residents every year. In 1990, the population was 29,060. In 2000, it was 33,496. In the past few years, Portage has experienced a resurgence. New businesses have moved to the city, new subdivisions have sprung up seemingly overnight, and some of the city’s main streets have recently been fixed up and modernized (such as Willowcreek Rd.).

Even though the city has been transformed from a rural community into a suburban setting, its agricultural roots can still be seen in the old farmhouses, lonely county roads, and cornfields that still make their home in Portage. It is with one eye to the past and the other to the future that the Portage Community Historical Society works to preserve the history of this area. “Appreciation of our past helps us to live wisely in the present, and to plan wisely for the future.” Won’t you join us in helping to preserve the history of Portage?

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