By the 1890s, Houghton had grown from a small lakeside village into a bustling regional center for transportation and commerce, and its municipal services brought structure to the expanding town through ordinances, utilities, and support for cultural institutions such as public libraries. Although Houghton incorporated as a village in 1861, its first significant municipal building was the 1883 fire hall, whose design included a large garage for fire-fighting equipment, a stairway to upper-floor offices, and originally a small tower with four clock faces and space to hang and dry hoses. An addition built in 1916 housed two more fire engines, and as the city grew, many municipal offices moved to the former Houghton Club building on Shelden Avenue in the 1930s and then in 1989 to the former Masonic Temple building, moves that helped preserve important historic buildings. The fire hall continued serving the Houghton fire department until 1974, when a new fire hall was built in a more central location for the growing city. The building also played an important role in education: although Governor Austin Blair signed a bill in 1861 to establish the Michigan Mining School in Houghton, the Civil War delayed state financing until 1885, and in 1886 the school began with a faculty of four and twenty-three students in rented space in the fire hall. The new school also used space in an armory on the east side of Huron Street at the site of the current library, in an area that also included an ice rink and an opera house. Houghton's well-known recreational facilities included the 1902 Amphidrome on the waterfront, with an ice rink and ballroom. In 1908, Portage Township school superintendent John Doelle led the successful effort to establish a public library in Houghton, and with a $15,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie, the Houghton Public Library was completed in 1910 and operated for many years by the school district before later being funded through a cooperative of municipalities.