Nottawa Sepee Trail was part of an ancient network of travel routes extending across southern Michigan. Nottawa Sepee Street is a remnant of the old Nottawa Sepee Indian trail documented by University of Michigan Prof. W. B. Hinsdale in his 1931 Archaeological Atlas of Michigan, and it remained in use as a travel route after American settlers arrived. Westward from Napoleon, the trail became Stony Lake Road, while eastward it originally continued across exposed sandstone bedrock and followed what is now Austin Road. Indians used the sandstone to grind, shape, and smooth objects made from wood, antler, or bone, and pieces of Napoleon sandstone showing signs of that use have been found on nearby Indian campsites. “Nottawa” was the name Algonquan-speaking Anishinabeg—Potawatomi, Chippewa, and Ottawa—used for the Huron tribe, which fled from Canada to Michigan in the 1600's to escape Iroquois war parties, and “Sepee” means river. Rivers in southern Michigan where the Huron lived were called Nottawa Sepee, and this trail was the route to some of those rivers. Artifacts found near Stony Lake on former Indian campsites beside the trail include a stone arrowhead, a spearpoint, a British musket flint, and a sandstone tool; the spearpoint is approximately 12,000 years old, among Michigan's oldest artifacts, and the trail itself was in use for thousands of years before European explorers or American settlers arrived.