Rose City was named for the Rose family, which came to Ogemaw County around 1871. It originated as Churchill, located one-half mile west of here, where during the 1870s the settlement consisted of a post office, a general store, a boardinghouse, and settlers' homes. William Rose came from New York State, drawn by the pines and hardwoods available for lumbering, and built a sawmill along Houghton Creek. His son Allan, a Churchill merchant and the first postmaster, formed a lumber company with M.S. French of West Branch. In 1892 Allan persuaded the Detroit and Mackinac Railroad to build a branch line to serve the area's lumbering operations, and the entire Churchill settlement relocated here that year and was platted as Rose City. The community was officially incorporated as a city in 1905. In the early morning hours of April 3, 1910, the booming lumber town went up in flames as a fire started in D.W. Benjamin's grocery store on the south side of West Main Street and quickly spread through the commercial district. Despite the efforts of a bucket brigade, the fire jumped across the street and swept down the north side. Because most buildings were of frame construction, the entire business district burned in less than an hour. The town lost over thirty buildings, and property losses from the fire and looting were estimated at $175,000. Only two concrete buildings on Main Street, housing Bell's Store and Naylor's Store, survived.