Menominee began with the arrival of French-Canadian voyager Louis Chaput (Chappee) in the late 1790s. An agent for the American Fur Company, Chaput was the first white settler in Menominee, which took its name from the Menominee Indians who inhabited the area. Over the next one hundred years, Menominee grew into a prosperous waterfront city fueled by a booming lumber industry. By 1890, twelve steam-powered lumber mills operated there, while fishing, papermaking, and pig iron production broadened the economy. By 1902, the population reached thirty thousand, then declined as the Upper Peninsula's pine forests were depleted, stabilizing at nine thousand during the 1990s. The Main Street Historic District includes buildings from the prosperous era of lumbering and shipping that began around 1890 and lasted until the timber supply was exhausted in the early twentieth century. Architects from the local area, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Green Bay designed buildings of native red sandstone and locally made brick. Notable structures include the Ludington, Wells and Van Schaick Company general store at 501 First Street, which served employees of the county's second largest lumber company, and the Paalzow Building at 409 First Street, built in 1895 with the district's only cast iron facade.