MACKINAW CITY

Region: St. Ignace & U.S. 2 to Naubinway

Before the Mackinac Bridge was finished in 1957, life in Mackinaw City revolved around the ferries. Central Avenue was (and still is) the main business street, mostly lined with tourist shops. Now Mackinaw City has blossomed into a sometimes crowded, Branson-style tourism destination quite different from the little town's traditional role as overnight lodging for Mackinac Island day trippers. Mackinaw City now has some 50 lodgings. Those south of Central along the water are big, colorful neo-Victorian affairs, like nothing Mackinaw City had ever seen before.
Unlike St. Ignace, Mackinaw Ciy is far from a year-round community. Its permanent population is under 900. There's no real supermarket. (Cheboygan, with its Kmart, Wal-Mart, and historic Cheboygan Opera House, is where Mackinaw City residents tend to shop, go to the doctor and pharmacist, and where many Mackinac State Historic Parks employees choose to live.)

In 1997 innovative Mackinaw City ferry owner Bill Shepler, Jr. joined with other investors to create Mackinaw Crossings, a festival marketplace with 100 shops and eateries, a musical revue, and a free nightly laser light show in summer. The Crossings is built on what used to be a staging area for ferries. Shepler also offered Disney courses to raise the customer service bar for local businesses and employees — a good idea that worked.

But the 800-seat theater didn't at all live up to expectations. And tourism has been mostly off since 9/11. By summer of 2006 some of the retail space was empty. Now one of the partners, a leading Missouri developer from Springfield, has bought everyone else out and, in light of Michigan's poor economy, renegotiated leases tenants regard as more realistic. There's talk of a miniature train and other kid stuff, and a Bass Pro Shop that would be the farthest north in the U.S.

Thunder Falls, a huge waterpark, is just off Exit 339, the first exit for drivers coming from the south.
Open from early June thru Labor Day, it can cost families a pretty penny. 2006 rates were $16 for kids 48" and under, $22 for others.Twilight rates are about $8 less. Kids can enjoy a free attraction at the north end of Mackinaw City, across from the park by Fort Michillimackinac. Running through the dancing fountain in front of the Fort Gift Shop and Candy Kitchen. has become a kid magnet.
See www.mackinawcity.com, the chamber of commerce web site, or call (231) 463-5574 for visitor information, including the latest visitor info on the new Mackinaw Maritime Museum (the 1944 icebreaker long based in Cheboygan). Lodgings listings are keyed to a convenient pdf locator map. (Don't be fooled by the lookalike, www.mackinaw-city.com . It's a membership site representing only a few larger lodgings.)

For people traveling with dogs, Sunrise Kennels (906-643-7726) across the bridge in St. Ignace boards dogs for a day or two.

Three historic attractions of the Mackinac State Historic Parks system are in Mackinaw City: Colonial Michilimackinac (the reconstructed second French fort at the Straits), the Old Mackinac Point lighthouse, and Mill Creek south of town, a reconstruction of a sawmill begun in the 1780s to saw lumber for Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island.

Old Mackinac Point, right at the base of the Mackinac Bridge and the Lower Peninsula's very northern tip, is a much larger park with benches near the water and picnic tables. It's a nice place to stroll at sunset or sit and picnic. Its centerpiece, Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, is now open, for a fee, to visitors as a restoration in progress. Its tower can be climbed.

Mackinac State Historic Parks owns the lighthouse and the adjoining small fog signal house. There the Lighthouse Information Center has exhibits, ticket sales for touring the lighthouse, and a shop with books and mementoes about Great Lakes maritime subjects and lighthouses.

The earlier village of Mackinaw City, with small houses on rectangular blocks, is north of Central and mostly east of I-75. (West of I-75 and south of Lake Michigan, houses are more apt to have been built as summer houses.) At the east (Lake Huron) ends of the east-west streets are pleasant little waterfront parks with seating and bridge views

Pronunciation advisory: "Mackinac" is perhaps the most widely mispronounced of any Midwestern place name. Get it right! Here's a simple fact: no matter how it's spelled, "Mackinac" and "Mackinaw" are always pronounced the same way - the "Mackinaw" way. The "c" in "Mackinac" is silent, so the last syllable is "naw." The French spelled the Indian word "Mackinac," the English spelled it "Mackinaw." Mackinaw City, at the north tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, is spelled the English way.

Very briefly, here are a few retail highlights:

• VIEWS OF THE PAST. Marquette photographer Jack Deo has assembled some 50,000 historic photos and cataloged well over 10,000. It all startedi in the 1970s when Jack found and bought collections of negatives of Upper Peninsula photographers from the late 1800s. Often he prints from the original glass-plate negative.
Photographs from towns and cities throughout Michigan and beyond are arranged by place and theme. Prints or reproductions are sold, either framed or not. Hundreds of Michigan towns are represented. These are popular nostalgia gifts. Most of the collection has been digitized and posted online at www.viewsofthepast.com. Musical, film, and sports celebrities are more recent additions—for example, from "Anatomy of a Murder," "Somewhere in Time," and most every Tigers' World Series. Inside Mackinaw Crossings near the Huron Ave./U.S. 23 entrance. (231) 436-7793. Open from May thru Oct.. From Mem. to Labor Day open 10 to 10. Otherwise 10-6. Call for possibly extended hours. Wheelchair accessible.

• ISLAND BOOKSTORE. A good independent bookstore with coffee bar. No wi-fi, but customers can check e-mail on computers. Outstanding selection of Mackinac books, shown on its web site for mail order215 E. Central. (231) 436-2665. Open from mid-May into late Oct. Summer hours (mid-June thru Labor Day) open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. 7 days


• MACKINAW KITE COMPANY. Things that fly - for fun and for decoration. Plus, yo-yos, juggling gear, spinners, puzzles and other toys. Mail order via on-line web site. 105 N. Huron, just north of Central by the water. (231) 436-8051. Open May into Oc.

•MUSEUM SHOPS at •COLONIAL MICHILIMACKINAC (beneath bridge) and OLD
MACKINAC POINT LIGHTHOUSE.

For an accessibility packet for all Mackinac State Historic Park locations, call (231) 436-5563 or e-mail a request to Katie Cederholm at cederhok@michigan.gov .

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