Best Web Design in Harrison Charter Township, MI (2026)

Web Design for Harrison Charter Township, Michigan

Harrison Township is a Macomb County charter township where 40 percent of the municipality is water, with roughly 15 miles of Lake St. Clair shoreline, dozens of marinas, and a nickname it wears on its own website: Boat Town USA. It holds both the mouth of the Clinton River and Selfridge Air National Guard Base, an airfield established in 1917 that trained Doolittle, LeMay, Spaatz and Lindbergh and hosted the Tuskegee Airmen. Just offshore, under an average of eleven feet of water, lie the remains of three port cities that failed before the Civil War.

AppWT serves Harrison Charter Township and the surrounding Michigan area from Livonia, Michigan.

About Harrison Charter Township

Also known as. "Boattown, U.S.A.". "Boat Town USA" (the spelling the township itself uses on its municipal website). Home of Selfridge. Formerly the site of Belvidere, Liverpool, Lakeside and Saint Clair Haven (its lost 19th-century settlements).

History. Harrison Township was formed in 1827 in the Michigan Territory along the shores of Lake St. Clair, and became a charter township in 1978. Belvidere was platted at the mouth of the Clinton River around 1835-36 and abandoned after flooding in 1838. Its remains are now submerged offshore. Liverpool was established in 1856 and intended, with a hotel and a lake dock, to rival Liverpool, England. The project collapsed. Lakeside was settled around 1900 by outside investors, and Saint Clair Haven developed as another lakefront community. Selfridge Field was established in 1917 as one of thirty-two U.S. Air Service training camps created after American entry into World War I. It expanded to its present 3,600 acres after World War II. On March 29, 1943 the 332d Fighter Group of the Tuskegee Airmen completed its move to Selfridge, and the 477th Bombardment Group (Colored) was activated there on January 15, 1944. On July 1, 1971 Selfridge Air Force Base was transferred to the Michigan Air National Guard, making it the first major active Air Force base to come under Air National Guard control. In 2023 Macomb County partnered with the Noble Odyssey Foundation, funded by a $79,000 Michigan Coastal Management Program grant, to survey and document the submerged lost settlements off the township's coast. The documentary was produced by Robert Kreipke, a former Ford Motor Company corporate historian.

Local economy. Selfridge Air National Guard Base is the dominant economic engine, supporting around 5,000 military and civilian jobs and contributing roughly $850 million annually to Michigan's economy. The base hosts the Michigan Air National Guard's 127th Wing. The 107th Fighter Squadron flies the A-10C Thunderbolt II and the 127th Air Refueling Group operates KC-135T Stratotankers, alongside Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps reserve units. Recreational boating is the second economy: dozens of marinas offer seasonal slips, transient wells, refueling, bait and maintenance along roughly 15 miles of shoreline. Wilson Marine operates the largest indoor watercraft showroom in the Great Lakes. Four DNR and Metropark boat launch sites serve the township, and more people access Lake St. Clair from Harrison Township than from any other location. The township is primarily a residential and bedroom community. Its entire area is served by L'Anse Creuse Public Schools, which is headquartered in neighboring Clinton Township.

Culture and community. Jobbie Nooner, one of the largest boat parties in the United States, began on Friday, June 28, 1974. The name comes from auto-plant workers who called themselves "jobbies" and took the day off to raft up. It now runs twice a year, the last Friday in June and the first Saturday after Labor Day, centered on Gull Island. Lake St. Clair spans more than 430 square miles of fresh water with 160 miles of shoreline and hosts Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments. Pro angler Kevin VanDam has called it "the greatest smallmouth bass fishery on the planet." Luigi's Original Restaurant has been serving pizza, lamb chops and steaks since 1953. Eddie's Drive-In keeps a 1950s hot-dog-and-shake format, and Bumpers Landing offers American pub fare with dockage for arriving boats. Sorrento's S.S. Pizza Boat delivers pizza by water to boats at anchor. The township has produced an unusual concentration of hockey talent: NHL players Dino Ciccarelli and David Legwand, and Olympic gold medalist Angela Ruggiero. Musician Uncle Kracker is from Harrison Township.

What makes Harrison Charter Township distinct. Water is 9.51 of the township's 23.76 square miles, or 40.03 percent. Two-fifths of the municipality is lake. Selfridge is named for 1st Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, who was killed on September 17, 1908 while flying as a passenger with Orville Wright at Fort Myer, Virginia, making him the first person ever killed in the crash of a powered aircraft. The base memorializes aviation's first fatality. Charles Lindbergh was assigned to Selfridge in 1927 and returned that November. Jimmy Doolittle, Curtis LeMay and Carl Spaatz also served there between the wars. Three attempts to build a great lake port here failed within twenty years. Belvidere drowned in 1838, Liverpool never got past its hotel, and their remains sit in shallow water offshore. Lake St. Clair averages only about eleven feet deep, so the lost towns are within reach of a diver. You can order a pizza to a boat at anchor. Sorrento's S.S. Pizza Boat runs the delivery route on the water. The point of land at Lake St. Clair Metropark was originally an island. On clear days you can see St. Clair Shores' Nine Mile Tower and Detroit's Renaissance Center across the water. Metro Beach has periodically closed to swimming due to E. coli contamination from sewage overflows upstream, an ongoing tension in a township whose identity is the water. Selfridge was the first major active-duty Air Force base in the country handed over to the Air National Guard, on July 1, 1971.

Harrison Charter Township Landmarks and Local Life

• Lake St. Clair Metropark - 770 acres on the lakeshore, founded in 1950 as St. Clair Metropolitan Beach, renamed Metropolitan Beach in 1953, shortened to Metro Beach, and renamed Lake St. Clair Metropark by board vote on December 8, 2011
• Selfridge Air National Guard Base - established 1917, covering 3,600 acres in the township's northern section
• The mouth of the Clinton River where it empties into Lake St. Clair - the same spot where Belvidere was platted and lost
• Anchor Bay and L'Anse Creuse Bay - framing the township's roughly 15 miles of shoreline
• The Metropark's 1,000-foot beach - Olympic-sized pool with water slides, 18-hole par-3 and miniature golf courses, marinas, and a paved one-mile shoreline trail
• The Metropark Nature Center - where 275 species of birds have been recorded

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