CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND

Region: Mackinac Island

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Michigan's most historic commercial center today is a beehive of tourist shops and amusements (see Downtown shops and amusements). Fudge making is a staple here, and in recent years some truly zany shops like Caddy Wampus and Great Turtle Toys make this a memorable district for kids. For all the commercialism, this island port has the feel of a quaint, if at times crowded village.

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The harbor shoreline here was an important gathering and trading place for Indians long before Europeans came to the Upper Great Lakes beginning around 1620. French traders turned it into a fur-trading village. Market Street was the island's principal business street for most of the 19th century (see Market Street, 1820s fur trade center. The business center moved to Main Street in the 1870s as the economy shifted to fishing and tourism. Houses lined the street leading past Ste. Anne's Catholic Church to Mission Point. Gradually those houses were displaced by hotels and summer homes.

Mackinac Island is a mix of intense tourism and a relaxed, affluent resort, as evidenced by the low-key, impeccably maintained yacht club across from the harbor.

Today most of the island's over 500 year-round residents live in Harrisonville, a few blocks of newer houses up behind the Grand Hotel toward the island's center. Year-round institutions are the library, the K-12 public school with under 100 students, Ste. Anne's Catholic Church, Doud's Grocery, the Mustang Bar (moving the pool table back into the barroom is a traditional marker for the end of the tourist season), and a slowly increasing number of restaurants to serve visitors of year-round lodgings. A quarter of the island's year-round residents count themselves as Native Americans, entirely or in part.

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