Leland's commercial fishing district has provided a livelihood for town residents for over a century. Fishermen reached the fishing grounds of Lake Michigan by way of the Leland River, also called the Carp River, using small sailboats until primitive gas-powered oak boats were introduced around 1900. Small fishing shanties and related buildings such as ice houses and smoke houses were constructed during the industry's peak years in the first three decades of the twentieth century, and some of these now gray, weather-beaten structures still serve their original purpose. Other buildings in the district date to Leland's lumbering and iron-smelting era in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Leland continues to be a commercial fishing area and the headquarters for transportation to the Manitou Islands.