GC7346E SwtM - Manistee (Traditional Cache) in Michigan, United States created by The Mitten Crew

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The Mitten Crew: Another year of the "Smitten with the Mitten" series has come to a close. Thanks for visiting this cache and learning about Michigan Small Towns.

GC7346E ▼

A cache by The Mitten Crew Message this owner

Hidden : 5/21/2017

Difficulty:

Terrain:

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Located in Manhattan Park.
Park is open from 7 AM to 10 PM.

Manistee is the county seat of Manistee County with a population of 6,226 as of the 2010 census. The name "Manistee" is from an Ojibwe word first applied to the principal river of the county. The derivation is not certain, but it may be from ministigweyaa, "river with islands at its mouth". Other sources claim that it was an Ojibwe term meaning "spirit of the woods".

In 1751, a Jesuit Mission was established in Manistee. Missionaries visited Manistee in the early 19th century, and a Jesuit mission house is known to have been located on the NW shore of Manistee Lake in 1826. In 1832, a group of traders from Massachusetts built a log house up the Manistee River. However, they were soon driven off by the Ottawa. The first white settlement and sawmill was built there in 1841. The village of Manistee was one of about 15 Ottawa villages along the shore of Lake Michigan in 1830. Much of the Manistee River Valley, including Manistee itself, was an Ottawa Reservation from 1836-1848.

The first permanent Euro-American settlement was made on April 16, 1841, when John Stronach and his son, Adam Stronach, arrived at the mouth of the Manistee River in a schooner loaded with fifteen men and equipment, and established a saw mill. In 1846, the town was named "Manistee" but was a part of Ottawa County, with county offices 100 miles away at Grand Haven. After a series of new counties were being drawn up, by 1855 it became part of a Manistee county that also included modern day Manistee, Wexford and Missaukee Counties.

During the lumbering era of the late 1800s, Manistee became a significant site for lumber mills. Huge numbers of white pine logs were floated down the river to the port at Manistee and eventually on to the lumber markets of Grand Rapids, Milwaukee and Chicago.

On October 8, 1871, the town was practically destroyed by fire; on the same day the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire, and fires in Port Huron and Holland occurred, the Great Michigan Fire lit up Manistee. Manistee was incorporated as a city in 1882.

In the late 19th century, Manistee was one of the leading shingle manufacturing cities in the world, with over 30 shingle mills on the Manistee river at one time. During the lumber boom of the 1880s, Manistee had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the United States.

Manistee is also associated with the salt industry. Manistee is now the home of three factories on Lake Manistee; Packaging Corporation of America, Morton Salt, and Martin Marietta. The town is also a local favorite for tourism and fishing.

Manistee has a historic downtown with many original buildings from the Victorian era. The entire Downtown District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are a good variety of retail stores in Manistee, many of which are locally owned and operated.