Courtesy Photo The bell from the Carl D. Bradley is on display at the Great Lakes Lore Museum in Rogers City in this undated provided photo. The freighter sank in Lake Michigan in 1958.

ROGERS CITY — The Presque Isle County Historical Museum and the Great Lakes Lore Museum are setting the stage for a November property tax request to residents of Rogers City and some of the surrounding townships.

A four-year, 0.5-mill tax would be used for operations of both entities, which currently rely on donations, grants, and gift shop revenue to survive. The owner of a $100,000 house would pay about $25 a year.

The Rogers City City Council and neighboring township boards would have to approve the language to put it on the ballot. None have yet voted on doing so.

The Presque Isle County Historical Museum is located in Rogers City and has counted on financial support from its 240 members, book sale, and from an endowment fund. Executive Director Mark Thompson said that, since 2005, when the county discontinued financial support for the museum, it has been able to operate because of the generosity of supporters and grants.

He said the museum had been using interest from the endowment fund to help balance its budget, but, now, it is beginning to dip into the principle — and that isn’t ideal.

“At our current rate of usage, we will burn through that fund pretty quickly, and we want to get back on track,” he said. “If we don’t find an alternate source of revenue, we’ll have to seriously alter our operations.”

Thompson said there is probably enough money in the endowment fund to operate for about six years. He doesn’t want to wait that long.

Great Lakes Lore Museum President and Director Roger Hulett said money the Rogers City maritime museum would receive would be used to add more programs and to improve the experience at the facility. He said many of the artifacts on display don’t have corresponding information about them posted for visitors to learn.

“Most of the things we have are really interesting, but, if we don’t have a volunteer walk through on a tour, there really isn’t much information available,” Hulett said. “We want to be able to tell more of the stories and share the facts with the people better, and that is something we have been working on and will continue to do so.”

The two groups have already decided on how to split any money collected through a tax. Hulett said allocations would be determined by the size of the museums and their budgets. He said the Great Lakes Lore Museum is smaller and would receive the smaller amount of the two.

“We would be happy with what we receive, and I think things have worked out so it would be very fair,” he said.

Thompson said the original idea was to just have the residents of Rogers City vote on the new tax, but the Rogers City City Council believed having a countywide tax would be the better option. Thompson said that, because there are multiple museums in the county, it was decided that the issue would be on the ballot in Rogers City and neighboring township, such as Rogers, Belknap, and Ocqueoc townships, and possibly others.

“Onaway has its own historical museum, as does Millersburg and Presque Isle Township, so I don’t think we would get a lot of support from those communities,” he said. “We will be going out into the townships and the city to drum up support as the election nears.”