chapter 3

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Traverse City, incorporated in 1895 with settlers arriving as early as 1840, was originally called “Queen City of the North.” The very first inhabitants of the area were the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi Indians. Traverse City, in essence, was their hunting and meeting place. These three tribes were so amicable and sociable that they came to be known as the Three Brothers. White settlers began to arrive in the 1840’s and saw great potential in the area for a lumber industry. A lumbering boom shaped the city but the boom itself exhausted the lumber supply by 1915. This development forced the considerable Indian people into reservation situations.
Today the settlement pattern reveals a dominating white population in Traverse City and surrounding areas with pockets of Indians and Hispanics outside the city. The Indians have been granted reservation setups, while the Hispanics are often migrant farmers who do most of their work from May to October. “Migrant” is increasingly a bit of a misnomer as there is an increase in Hispanics trying to stay in the area year round.

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