MACKINAW CITY

village, Cheboygan and Emmet counties, northern Michigan, U.S. It lies on the Straits of Mackinac opposite St. Ignace, with which it is linked northward by the 5-mile- (8-kilometre-) long Mackinac Bridge. The village is located at the northernmost point of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. European settlement of the site originated in 1673 with a French trading post, which in 1715 developed as Fort Michilimackinac. During the French and Indian Wars the fort was taken over (1760) by the British, only to be destroyed in 1763 and its garrison massacred by a Chippewa-Sauk band of Indians under Chief Minavavana. In 178081 the British moved the fort across the straits to Mackinac Island. A restoration of the original French-British fort, designated a national historic landmark, stands in Michilimackinac State Park at the southern end of the bridge. Mackinac Maritime Museum, also in the park, includes Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse (1892) and the reconstructed 18th-century wooden sloop Welcome. The village of Michilimackinac was laid out in 1857 and its name shortened to Mackinaw in 1894. Its position as a control point on the straits was sustained by the arrival of the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad in 1881, and it was incorporated as a village in 1882. Mackinaw City now caters to summer vacationers and is a departure point for ferries to Mackinac Island (a 40-minute crossing). Pop. (1990) 875.