Petoskey, Michigan
Encyclopedia
Petoskey is a city and coastal resort
Resort
A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation, attracting visitors for holidays or vacations. Resorts are places, towns or sometimes commercial establishment operated by a single company....

 community in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 6,080. It is the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Emmet County
Emmet County, Michigan
Emmet County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the population was 31,437. The county seat is Petoskey.The county was formed April 1, 1840, from Mackinac County. It was first named Tonedagana County and renamed Emmet County on March 8, 1843...

.

Petoskey and the surrounding area are notable for being the setting of several of the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, who spent his childhood summers on nearby Walloon Lake
Walloon Lake
Walloon Lake is a glacier-formed lake and the headwater for the Bear River located in Charlevoix and Emmet counties in Northern Michigan. It is now home to many vacation homes and cottages.-History:...

, as well as being the place where for Calliope, the protagonist of Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his first two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . His novel The Marriage Plot was published in October, 2011.-Life and career:Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan,...

' Middlesex, events take a severe and lasting turn. Petoskey was also the location where 50,000 passenger pigeon
Passenger Pigeon
The Passenger Pigeon or Wild Pigeon was a bird, now extinct, that existed in North America and lived in enormous migratory flocks until the early 20th century...

 birds were killed each day in the late 19th century, prior to their complete extinction in the early 20th century.

Petoskey is also famous for a high concentration of Petoskey stone
Petoskey stone
A Petoskey stone is a rock and a fossil, often pebble-shaped, that is composed of a fossilized coral, Hexagonaria percarinata. The stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in Michigan's...

s, the state stone of Michigan. Petoskey is the birthplace of information theorist Claude Shannon and Civil War historian Bruce Catton
Bruce Catton
Charles Bruce Catton was an American historian and journalist, best known for his books on the American Civil War. Known as a narrative historian, Catton specialized in popular histories that emphasized colorful characters and historical vignettes, in addition to the basic facts, dates, and analyses...

 and is the boyhood home of singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer-songwriter and musician born in Detroit, Michigan. Stevens first began releasing his music on Asthmatic Kitty, a label co-founded with his stepfather, beginning with the 1999 release, A Sun Came...

.

The name "Petoskey" is said to mean "where the light shines through the clouds" in the language of the Odawa
Odawa people
The Odawa or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in...

 Indians (Little Traverse Bay Band
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians
The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Odawa Indians. A large percentage of the more than 4000 tribal members continue to reside within the tribe's traditional homelands on the northwestern shores of the state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula...

), who are the original inhabitants. The Petoskey stone and the city were named after Chief Ignatius Petosega (1787–1885), who founded the community. Petosega's father was a French Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 fur trader and his mother was an Odawa (Ottawa) Indian.

This city was the northern terminus of the Chicago and West Michigan Railway
Chicago and West Michigan Railway
The Chicago and West Michigan Railway is a defunct railroad which operated in the state of Michigan between 1881 and 1899. It was one of the three companies which merged to become the Pere Marquette Railway....

.

Geography

Part of Northern Michigan
Northern Michigan
Northern Michigan, also known as Northern Lower Michigan , is a region of the U.S. state of Michigan...

, Petoskey is on the southeast shore of the Little Traverse Bay
Little Traverse Bay
Little Traverse Bay is a small bay, 170 feet deep, off Lake Michigan in the northern area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Harbor Springs and Petoskey are on this bay.The Little Traverse Light marks its entrance....

 of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

 at the mouth of the Bear River
Bear River (Michigan)
Bear River is a small clear slow moving river in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the largest tributary of Little Traverse Bay in the northwest of the lower peninsula. The river is formed as the outflow of Walloon Lake on the boundary between Charlevoix County and Emmet County, draining from the...

. According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the city has a total area of 5.2 square miles (13.5 km²), of which, 5 square miles (12.9 km²) of it is land and 0.2 square mile (0.517997622 km²) of it (4.02%) is water. The Petoskey area also is rather hilly and rocky.

Demographics

At the 2010 Census Petoskey had a population of 5,670. The racial and ethnic makee-up of the population was 90.8% non-Hispanic white, 0.7% black or African American, 4.7% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.5% From some other race, 2.1% of two or more races and 1.89% Hispanic or Latino of any race.

As of the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 6,080 people, 2,700 households, and 1,447 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 1,210.9 per square mile (467.6/km²). There were 3,342 housing units at an average density of 665.6 per square mile (257.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 94.18% White, 0.33% African American, 3.17% Native American, 0.81% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.20% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...

, and 1.30% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.17% of the population.

There were 2,700 households out of which 27.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.8% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 46.4% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.14 and the average family size was 2.89.

In the city the population was spread out with 23.0% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 28.5% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 17.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 85.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.2 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $33,657, and the median income for a family was $48,168. Males had a median income of $35,875 versus $25,114 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the city was $20,259. About 6.6% of families and 12.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.6% of those under age 18 and 8.4% of those age 65 or over.

Transportation

Airports

  • The nearest airports with scheduled passenger service are in Pellston Regional Airport
    Pellston Regional Airport
    Pellston Regional Airport , also known as Pellston Regional Airport of Emmet County, is a public airport located one mile northwest of the central business district of Pellston, a village in Emmet County, Michigan, United States....

     and Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport
    Cherry Capital Airport
    Cherry Capital Airport is a public-use airport located two nautical miles south of the central business district of Traverse City, in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, United States...

    .

Rail

  • Freight rail service to Petoskey is limited and provided by the Tuscola and Saginaw Bay Railway
    Tuscola and Saginaw Bay Railway
    The Great Lakes Central Railroad is a Class II regional railroad, originally called the Tuscola and Saginaw Bay Railway was formed on August 26, 1977 to operate over former Penn Central lines from Millington to Munger, Michigan, and Vassar to Colling, Michigan...

     (TSBY); however, the tracks are owned by the state of Michigan in order to preserve rail service in northern Michigan. Freight traffic includes plastic pellets delivered to a rail/truck transload facility for Petoskey Plastics. Occasional passenger/special excursion trains to Petoskey occur every now and then. Historically, the Northern Arrow
    Northern Arrow
    The Northern Arrow was one of the named passenger trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad serving St. Louis, Missouri, Cincinnati, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, and Mackinaw City, Michigan. It used the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, a leased subsidiary of the Pennsylvania system...

     and other rail lines provided passenger traffic to Petoskey and Bay View
    Bay View, Michigan
    Bay View is an unincorporated resort community in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Bear Creek Township, Emmet County on Little Traverse Bay and abuts the east side of the city of Petoskey along U.S. Highway 31. The ZIP code is 49770 and the FIPS place code is 06260...

    , Michigan
    Michigan
    Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

     from as far as Chicago
    Chicago
    Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

     and St. Louis
    St. Louis, Missouri
    St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

    , but these were discontinued in the late 20th century.

Marina

  • The City of Petoskey Department of Parks and Recreation operates a 144-slip marina located in Bayfront Park. The marina offers seasonal and transient slips, gasoline, diesel fuel, boat launch, wireless internet, 30/50 AMP power, water, pump-out, restroom/showers, playground and adjacent park grounds. The Gaslight District is connected to Bayfront Park via a pedestrian tunnel. The marina received initial designation as a "Michigan Clean Marina" in May 2007 and was recertified in 2010.

Major highways

US-31
U.S. Route 31
U.S. Route 31 is a long north–south highway connecting northern Michigan to southern Alabama, with its northern terminus at Interstate 75 near Mackinaw City, Michigan, and southern terminus at the combined U.S. Route 90 & U.S. Route 98 at Spanish Fort, Alabama...

 is a major highway running through the heart of the city. It continues southerly toward Charlevoix
Charlevoix, Michigan
Charlevoix is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 2,994. It is the county seat of Charlevoix County....

, Traverse City
Traverse City, Michigan
Traverse City is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, although a small portion extends into Leelanau County. It is the largest city in the 21-county Northern Michigan region. The population was 14,674 at the 2010 census, with 143,372 in the Traverse...

 and Muskegon
Muskegon, Michigan
Muskegon is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 38,401. The city is the county seat of Muskegon County...

 and northerly to a terminus near Mackinaw City
Mackinaw City, Michigan
Mackinaw City is a village in Emmet and Cheboygan counties in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2000 census the population was 859. The name "Mackinaw City" is a bit of a misnomer as it is actually a village...

.
US-131
U.S. Route 131
US Highway 131 is a north–south United States Highway, of which all but 0.67 miles of its 266.82 miles are within the state of Michigan. The highway starts in rural Indiana south of the state line as a state road connection to the Indiana Toll Road...

 has its northern terminus in the city and continues southerly toward Cadillac
Cadillac, Michigan
Cadillac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is the county seat of Wexford County. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 10,000. The city is situated at the junction of US 131, M-55 and M-115...

 and Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...

.
M-119
M-119 (Michigan highway)
The current highway was designated in 1979, replacing the former route of M-131; the routing has remained unchanged since. This section of highway had been part of M-13 on July 1, 1919, when the state trunkline highway system debuted...

, accessible off US 31 east of the city and Bay View
Bay View, Michigan
Bay View is an unincorporated resort community in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Bear Creek Township, Emmet County on Little Traverse Bay and abuts the east side of the city of Petoskey along U.S. Highway 31. The ZIP code is 49770 and the FIPS place code is 06260...

, continues around the north side of Little Traverse Bay to Harbor Springs
Harbor Springs, Michigan
Harbor Springs is a city and resort community in Emmet County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,567 at the 2000 census.Harbor Springs is in a sheltered bay on the north shore of the Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan. The Little Traverse Lighthouse is a historic lighthouse on...

 and then to Cross Village.
C-58 begins at C-81 just east of the city and continues to Wolverine
Wolverine, Michigan
Wolverine is a village in Cheboygan County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 359 at the 2000 census.The village is in the sparsely populated southwest corner of Cheboygan County, lying mostly within Nunda Township, though a small portion lies in adjacent Wilmot Township...

.
C-81 is a north-south route passing just to the east of the city.

Media

Newspaper:
  • Petoskey News-Review


Magazines:
  • Traverse
    Traverse (magazine)
    Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine is a monthly magazine about life in Northern Michigan]] including Petoskey, Mackinac Island, Harbor Springs, Frankfort, Traverse City, Leelanau County, the Upper Peninsula, and more. Founded in June, 1981, Traverse has 23,000 subscribers throughout the...

    , is published monthly with a focus on regional interests.


Local AM radio:
  • WLDR
    WLDR
    WLDR-FM 101.9 Traverse City, MI, simulcast on WARD 750 Petoskey, MI, is a station that airs a country music format as "Sunny Country 101.9". The stations are owned by broadcaster Roy Henderson, who is WLDR's third owner in its 40-year history....

     (750) - country
    Country music
    Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

    ; simulcast of WLDR-FM Traverse City
  • WJML
    WJML
    WJML consists of AM stations WJML 1110 in Petoskey, Michigan and WJNL 1210 in Kingsley, Michigan. Both stations are owned by Rick Stone, and both stations have simulcast the same programming, with a mixture of liberal talk format and conservative talk....

     (1110) - talk
  • WMKT
    WMKT
    WMKT is a radio station licensed to Charlevoix, Michigan broadcasting a talk radio format. The station broadcasts on 1270 AM as well as an FM translator on 92.1 and streams online...

     (1270) - news/talk (licensed to Charlevoix
    Charlevoix, Michigan
    Charlevoix is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 2,994. It is the county seat of Charlevoix County....

    , studios in Petoskey)
  • WMBN
    WMBN
    WMBN is an AM radio station broadcasting at 1340 kHz in Petoskey, Michigan, United States. The station, owned by MacDonald-Garber Broadcasting, airs Dial Global's satellite-delivered America's Best Music format of adult standards and soft adult contemporary oldies.WMBN went on the air in April...

     (1340) - adult standards
    Adult standards
    Adult standards is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.Adult standards is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly those persons over 50 years of age, but it is mostly targeted for senior citizens...



Local FM radio:
  • WTLI
    WTLI
    WTLI is a non-commercial, contemporary Christian FM radio station licensed to broadcast from Bear Creek Township and Boyne City, Michigan. The transmitter is located west of Vanderbilt, Michigan on the WFUP-TV channel-45 tower...

     (89.3) - contemporary Christian "Smile FM"
  • WTCK
    WTCK
    WTCK is a radio station broadcasting a Catholic religious format, simulcasting WDEO of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Licensed to Charlevoix, Michigan USA, the station is currently owned by Baraga Broadcasting.WTCK programming is also heard in St...

     (90.9) - Catholic religious (Charlevoix
    Charlevoix
    The Charlevoix region, located in Quebec, includes parts of the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River and the Laurentian Mountains region of the Canadian Shield...

    )
  • WJOG
    WJOG
    WJOG is a radio station which is part of the Smile FM radio network. It began broadcasting in the summer of 2006 as a repeater of WTLI on 91.3. WJOG, officially owned by Michigan Community Radio, is licensed to Good Hart, Michigan, and Petoskey, Michigan. The transmitter is located on a 623 foot...

     (91.3) - contemporary Christian "Smile FM"
  • WTCM (93.5) - country
    Country music
    Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

    ; simulcast of WTCM-FM Traverse City
  • W237DA (95.3) - translator of WFDX-FM Atlanta (classic hits
    Classic hits
    Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes rock and pop music from 1964 to 1989. The term is sometimes erroneously used as a synonym for the adult hits format, but is more accurately characterized as a contemporary style of the oldies format...

    )
  • WLXT
    WLXT
    WLXT in Petoskey, Michigan, is an adult contemporary-formatted radio station that broadcasts with 100,000 watts, covering most of northern Michigan. It is owned by Trish MacDonald-Garber, whose family has owned the station for over 30 years.-WMBN-FM:The station signed on in the late 1960s at 96.7,...

     (96.3) - adult contemporary
  • WKLZ
    WKLT
    WKLT 97.5 Kalkaska and WKLZ-FM 98.9 Petoskey are mainstream rock stations simulcasting as "KLT The Rock Station". The station serves the Traverse City-Petoskey radio market. It can Be Heard as far North as Sault Ste Marie, Ontario...

     (98.9) - classic rock
    Rock music
    Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

    ; simulcast of WKLT-FM Kalkaska
  • W259AH (99.7) - translator of WPHN-FM Gaylord (religious)
  • WICV
    Interlochen Center for the Arts
    Interlochen Center for the Arts is a privately owned, 1,200 acre arts education institution in Interlochen, Michigan, roughly 15 miles southwest of Traverse City...

     (100.9) - classical (East Jordan); simulcast of WIAA-FM Interlochen
  • WCMW
    WCMU-FM
    WCMU-FM is a radio station in the United States, broadcasting at FM 89.5 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The station, owned by Central Michigan University, is a National Public Radio member station, airing a large amount of classical and jazz music along with a variety of other programming...

     (103.9) - CMU Public Radio (Harbor Springs)
  • WKHQ
    WKHQ
    WKHQ-FM is a 100,000-watt radio station licensed to Charlevoix, Michigan, with studios located on U.S. 131 South Petoskey, Michigan and 8th Street in Traverse City, Michigan...

     (105.9) - CHR
    Contemporary hit radio
    Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

    /top 40 (licensed to Charlevoix
    Charlevoix
    The Charlevoix region, located in Quebec, includes parts of the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River and the Laurentian Mountains region of the Canadian Shield...

    , studios in Petoskey)
  • WCZW (107.9) - oldies
    Oldies
    Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....

     (Charlevoix
    Charlevoix
    The Charlevoix region, located in Quebec, includes parts of the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River and the Laurentian Mountains region of the Canadian Shield...

    ); simulcast of WCCW-FM Traverse City

Camping

Petoskey State Park
Petoskey State Park
Petoskey State Park is a state park in Emmet County, Michigan. The home of the "Petoskey stone," Michigan's state stone, the park is located in Bear Creek Township, on the road between the cities of Petoskey and Harbor Springs. The park has frontage on Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan and is...

 is located on the Little Traverse Bay
Little Traverse Bay
Little Traverse Bay is a small bay, 170 feet deep, off Lake Michigan in the northern area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Harbor Springs and Petoskey are on this bay.The Little Traverse Light marks its entrance....

 between Petoskey & Harbor Springs

Camp Pet-O-Se-Ga is located east of Petoskey on Pickerel Lake

Wilderness State Park
Wilderness State Park
Wilderness State Park is an state park in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Emmet County in Northern Michigan. The nearest towns are Carp Lake, Michigan and Mackinaw City, Michigan. The state park is operated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources...

 is located north of Petoskey in Cross Village

Further reading

Cappel, Constance, Hemingway in Michigan, 1999, Little Traverse Historical Society: Petoskey, MI.
Cappel, Constance, ed., 2006 Odawa Language and Legends, Xlibris:Philadelphia, PA.

Cappel, Constance, 2007,The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: A History of a Native American People, Ediwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, NY.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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