Manistee

Manistee, a city and the county-seat of Manistee county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Manistee river (which here broadens into a small lake) near its entrance into Lake Michigan, about 114 m. W.N.W. of Grand Rapids. Pop. (1890), 12,812; (1900), 14,260 (4 9 66 foreign-born); (1904, state census), 12,708; (1910), 12, 3 81. It is served by the Pere Marquette, the Manistee & Grand Rapids, the Manistee & North-Eastern, and the Manistee & Luther railways, and by steamboat lines to Chicago, Milwaukee and other lake ports. The channel between Lake Manistee and Lake Michigan has been considerably improved since 1867 by the Federal government. There is a United States life-saving station at the harbour entrance. The city has a county normal school, a school for the deaf and dumb, a domestic science and manual training school, a business college, and a Carnegie library. Manistee is a summer resort, with good trout streams and well-known brine-baths. One mile from the city limits, on Lake Michigan, is Orchard Beach, a bathing resort, connected with the city by electric railway; and about 9 m. north of Manistee is Portage Lake (about 2 m. long and 1 m. wide), a fishing resort and harbour of refuge (with a good channel from Lake Michigan), connected with the city by steamboat and railway. Manistee has large lumber interests, is the centre of an extensive fruit-growing region, and has various manufactures, including lumber and salt.' The total value of the factory product in 1904 was $3,256,601. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks. Manistee (the name being taken from a former Ottawa Indian village, probably on Little Traverse Bay, Mich.) was settled about 1849, and was chartered as a city in 1869, the charter of that year being revised in 1890.