Once heavily timbered with hardwoods in the south and pine in the north, dotted with lakes, swamps, and bogs, and laced with rivers and streams, the Heartland of Michigan today is a region of open fields and woods. Well-established farms in the south and oil wells and refineries...
Situated on the Chippewa River, Mount Pleasant originated as a trading post and was settled in 1861. The community was incorporated as a village in 1875 and as a city in 1889. After the close of the lumbering era, the surrounding rolling farmland produced...
Alma is located on the Pine River, the Pere Marquette and Ann Arbor railroads (now the Mid-Michigan Railroad), and U.S. 27. Formerly in the midst of an extensive lumbering region, the surrounding land was later transformed into farms. The river afforded a source of...
Settled in 1862 and incorporated as a village in 1869, Stanton became a city in 1881. Its location on the Pere Marquette Railroad ensured its development as a shipping center for lumber and shingles cut at local mills. After the lumbering era, Stanton continued as the seat of...
Big Rapids is situated on the big rapids of the Muskegon River at the site of a dam that raised the water level high enough to float logs downstream. Several sawmills were built here. Lumbermen financed the construction of the Muskegon and Big Rapids Railroad. This...
Clare is a crossroads at the intersection of U.S. 27 and U.S. 10, and at the gateway to northern Michigan. Its most prominent building is the Doherty Hotel (1922–1924, Clarence L. Cowles) at 604 N. McEwan Street. The hotel served as a convenient stopping place for motorists....
Prior to the Treaty of Washington in 1836, land that includes the West Michigan Shore Region belonged to Native Americans. Euro-American settlers came beginning in 1836 to harvest the forests. An average of five thousand board feet of pine lumber per acre of land was...
Muskegon is situated on the south shore of Muskegon Lake, in the seven-mile-long area from Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Muskegon River. The “Lumber Queen of the World,” as Muskegon was called during the 1880s when it was the largest lumber-producing city in the world,...
The first white settlers in Oceana County came during the early 1840s and were lumbermen, among them Charles Mears. Mears (1814–1896) built lumber mills along the county's Lake Michigan shoreline, platted towns, began commercial enterprises, and established farms to supply...
Founded near the site of the Baird and Bean lumber mill, Ludington became the largest town in Mason County. The Pere Marquette River watershed, which empties into Lake Michigan at Ludington, provided the sources of power and transportation for pine logs from a...
The city began with the Stronach Brothers mill site in 1840. When Manistee County was organized in 1855, the city of Manistee became the seat of county government. By 1867 twenty-one sawmills were operating around Manistee Lake. The city harbor was improved for...
Located at the intersection of three major highways and on the shore of Lake Mitchell, Cadillac is the principal community of Wexford County. It was named for Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, founder of Detroit, by the lumbermen who founded it. An exception within the region,...
The Traverse Bay Region borders the sandy beaches and pristine waters of Lake Michigan on the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsula from the Straits of Mackinac south to a point just north of Arcadia. Wind action related to Glacial Lake Nipissing formed large sand dunes in...
The city of Petoskey hugs the shore of Little Traverse Bay and is bisected on the north–south axis by Bear River. The central business district and neighborhoods in the western portion of the city lie on the lowlands that border the bay, while the neighborhoods to the east...
Bay Harbor is a huge resort development stretching for five miles along Little Traverse Bay on eleven hundred acres that was reclaimed from industrial use. Previously, Dundee Cement Company quarry and plant (Penn-Dixie plant) operated two seventy-foot-deep quarries of...
Founded in 1876 as a Methodist camp meeting and resort, Bay View is a religiously oriented summer community of 437 privately owned cottages, 2 hotels, and 29 additional buildings, all belonging to the Bay View Association, which also owns the land and governs life in the...
Surrounded by wooded hillsides, Harbor Springs overlooks a beautiful natural harbor formed by the projection of Harbor Point across the northern part of Little Traverse Bay. The area was a summer village for Ottawa and Chippewa. Here, in 1829, Father Peter de Jean...
Wequetonsing is bounded by Beach Drive and the shore of Little Traverse Bay from a point just west of 1st Avenue to just east of 5th Avenue, and by MI 119. East Wequetonsing is bounded on the west by Wequetonsing and on the east...
Harbor Point is the most exclusive of the eight summer resorts, some divided into as many as two hundred lots, that were established in the Harbor Springs vicinity by 1910. It was organized in 1878 by a group of Lansing businessmen who had camped out at Harbor Point....
Named in honor of early French explorer Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, the city fronts Lake Michigan, Round Lake, and Lake Charlevoix. A navigable channel connects Lake Michigan to Round Lake, which serves as an inland harbor for pleasure boats. After...
Traverse City is located at the base of the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas where the Boardman River flows into Grand Traverse Bay. In 1847 William Boardman bought pine lands on the river and, in partnership with his son, began logging and milling operations. In...
Leelanau Scenic Heritage Route of MI 22, which is the major road through the county, runs for sixty miles from the village of Empire on the southwest around the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula to the junction of MI 72 northwest of Traverse. It presents some of the most scenic...
Founded in the 1870s as a small sawmill and cordwood-cutting village, Glen Haven now lies within the boundaries of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Its modest wooden buildings, many stabilized by the park, flank the main street (MI 209) that leads west...
The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians established Peshawbestown in 1852. Nearly 130 years later, in 1980, the tribe petitioned for, and received, federal recognition, allowing it to exercise treaty and fishing rights, and other self-governing services....
In 1857 Benzonia was platted on the top of the hill that leads up from Beulah and Crystal Lake to accommodate Benzie Academy. The academy and its campus comprised some fifteen acres with large maple and oak trees, straddling Michigan Avenue. The academy closed...
Frankfort is located on Lake Michigan and Betsie Lake. In the lobby over the postmaster's door of the Colonial Revival U.S. Post Office (1940, Louis A. Simon; 615 Main Street) is displayed Henry Bernstein's mural On Board the Car Ferry Ann Arbor No. 4,...
The white pine forests and the lakes, streams, and rivers on which the initial economy of the North-Central Lakes and Forests Region was founded in the late nineteenth century, and which wisely were replenished by twentieth-century reforestation and...
Located on the Middle Branch of the Au Sable River and the Mackinac Division of the Michigan Central Railroad, Grayling was platted in 1874 by the railroad. It was named for the fish once plentiful in the Au Sable River. The picturesque wooden houses of...
Platted in 1873 and incorporated as a village in 1881, Gaylord was incorporated as a city in 1922. It grew as a warehouse and distribution center for the produce raised in nearby potato fields and a manufacturing center for hardwood products—woodenware, butter...
Houghton Lake is a resort center on the largest inland lake in Michigan. The shoreline of the lake is lined with cozy cottages built by auto workers and their families on small lots as weekend getaways. Houghton Lake and Prudenville are headquarters for the annual Tip-...
