Template:Wp-Manistee, Michigan-History

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In 1751, a Jesuit Mission was established in Manistee. Missionaries visited Manistee in the early 19th century, and a Jesuit mission house is known to have been located on the NW shore of Manistee Lake in 1826. In 1832, a group of traders from Massachusetts built a log house up the Manistee River. However, they were soon driven off by the Odawa nation. The first white settlement and sawmill was built there in 1841.^[1]

In 1830 the village of Manistee was one of about 15 Odawa (Ottawa) villages along the shore of Lake Michigan. Much of the Manistee River Valley, including Manistee itself, was designated as an Odawa Reservation from 1836 to 1848.

The first permanent Euro-American settlement was made on April 16, 1841, when John Stronach and his son, Adam Stronach, arrived at the mouth of the Manistee River in a schooner loaded with fifteen men and equipment, and established a saw mill.

In 1846, the town was named "Manistee"; it was made part of Ottawa County, whose county offices were 100 miles away at Grand Haven. After a series of new counties were organized, by 1855 Manistee was part of a large Manistee county that also included modern-day Manistee, Wexford, and Missaukee counties. Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell, Manistee's first lawyer, moved there in 1860 and remained there until his death. Ramsdell owned the first hardware store in the city, and was responsible for the construction of a bridge across the Manistee River.

On October 8, 1871, the town was practically destroyed by fire; on the same day that the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire, and fires in Port Huron and Holland occurred, the Great Michigan Fire burned Manistee. Manistee was incorporated as a city in 1882.

21st century to present

In 2000, Manistee made national headlines after a local jury convicted a woman for expressing to her mother near a Hispanic family in a restaurant her wish that immigrants would learn English; the judge described it as "insulting conduct" consisting of "fighting words", an offense that was punishable under a local ordinance. Allegations appeared of improper procedure and irregularities in the court records. Two years later (November 1, 2002) and after the defendant spent four nights in jail, the conviction was overturned by the state Court of Appeals.