Grand Marais, among Michigan’s oldest place names, was named by French explorers, missionaries, and traders who passed here in the 1600’s, using “marais” as voyageurs’ term for a harbor of refuge. In the 1800’s, Lewis Cass, Henry Schoolcraft, and Douglass Houghton also found the sheltered harbor a welcome stopping place. Permanent settlement began in the 1860’s with fishing and lumbering. At the turn of the century, Grand Marais became a boom town served by a railroad from the south, and its mills produced many millions of board feet annually. Lumbering declined around 1910, and Grand Marais became almost a ghost town, but the fishing industry continued. Many shipping disasters have occurred at or near this harbor of refuge, which has been served by the Coast Guard since 1899. In 1942, the first radar station in Michigan was built in Grand Marais. Fishing, lumbering, and tourism now provide its livelihood.