The Cities and Towns of the High Plains of Michigan

Abstract

W < THEN the lumbering industry moved into the forested area of northern Michigan, there was no preexisting structure of settlement on the land. The only cultural patterns were the broad net of Indian trails and the witness trees marked by the Land Office surveys to divide the land into townships and sections. It was necessary for the lumbermen to build their own system of communication, and they built it in accordance with their needs, not with the idea of its usefulness to any economy that might succeed their own. This communication system was naturally the basis for the distribution of the cities, towns, and villages that served lumbering, and parts of it remain in use today.