Cheboygan

Cheboygan County Historical Museum Complex

Cheboygan, city, seat (1853) of Cheboygan county, northern Michigan, U.S. The city lies along the Cheboygan River as it enters Lake Huron near the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac. According to some reports, the site was a Native American camping ground until it was settled by Jacob Sammons in 1844. It was first called Duncan, then Inverness, and later Cheboygan, an Algonquian word possibly meaning “Chippewa water” or “the river that comes out of the ground.” It developed as a lumbering centre and commercial fishing port, but with the decline of both resources it turned to tourism (based on year-round outdoor recreation) and manufacturing (paper and metal products, industrial machinery, and auto parts).

South of the city is Michigan’s Inland Waterway, a 38-mile (61-km) channel comprising many streams and Crooked, Pickerel, Mullett, and Burt lakes, with boating and fishing facilities. The Cheboygan area is known for its fresh air and low pollen count. The city’s Victorian-style opera house, originally built in 1877 at the height of the timber boom, was restored and reopened in 1984 after years of neglect and disuse; it is now a centrepiece of the city’s renovated downtown district. North Central Michigan College (1958), a two-year institution in Petoskey, some 40 miles (65 km) southwest, operates state parks in the vicinity, including those on Burt and Mullett lakes and on the Straits of Mackinac. Bois Blanc (often called Boblo) Island, 6 miles (10 km) north of Cheboygan, is connected to the city by ferry and charter plane. Inc. village, 1871; city, 1889. Pop. (2000) 5,295; (2010) 4,867.