ESCANABA

city, seat (1861) of Delta county, southern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S., and a port on Little Bay de Noc, an inlet of Green Bay, 54 miles (87 km) north-northeast of Menominee. Lumber operations began there in the 1830s. The community, named Escanaba (Chippewa Indian: red buck, or flat rock), developed rapidly after 1863, when the Chicago and North Western Railway Company built the first iron-ore dock; the only one on Lake Michigan, it became important with the growth of the Chicago steel industry. The city has timber-based industries and is a distribution centre with facilities for storage and shipment of coal and petroleum products. The Upper Peninsula State Fair is an annual (August) event. Escanaba is the headquarters of Hiawatha National Forest and is the site of Bay de Noc Community College (1963). Inc. city, 1883. Pop. (1992 est.) 13,866.