Escanaba

Escanaba grew as a port and town on Little Bay de Noc, where abundant regional timber, later iron ore, and Great Lakes shipping made it a commercial center for sawmills, logging camps, fisheries, rail connections, and trade in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Canoes of Indian peoples, voyageurs, and missionaries stopped there on Great Lakes routes, and the bay also lay along Indian and later French travel between Mackinac Island and Fort Howard. The name, first written "Escanawba," came from an Indian word meaning "flat rock," referring to the river to the north. The area's first white settlement arose in the 1830s at the Escanaba River as a sawmill community of the N. Ludington Co., and in 1862 Eli Parsons Royce surveyed the new community at Sand Point; after the town was organized in 1863, he remained a leading civic figure as postmaster, judge of probate, alderman, village president, city engineer, prosecuting attorney, lawyer, and property owner. By 1865 the railroad from Marquette had reached Escanaba, the Delta County seat moved there, and ore docks projected from the waterfront, strengthening the town's role in shipping iron ore to steel mills as well as lumber, fish, and other products. The community expanded with boarding houses, saloons, and businesses on Ludington Street, became an incorporated village in 1866 and a charter city in 1883, and continued to grow in population and commerce into the late nineteenth century before adopting the council-manager system in 1922. Over time its waterfront and Sand Point evolved into Ludington Park, with land purchases beginning in 1893, shoreline filling and island creation during the 1930s Works Progress Administration era, later marina and recreation improvements, and continued landmarks such as the former lightkeeper's dwelling and Municipal Dock. Escanaba's industrial history also included major forestry operations of the I. Stephenson Co., foundry work, stump pullers, woodenware, veneer, pulp and paper, charcoal-iron production, crane and welding machine manufacturing, brewing, bottling, cigars, hotels, restaurants, and once-large fish shipments to cities such as Chicago.

Escanaba, Michigan · United States