Best Web Design in Pere Marquette Charter Township, MI (2026)

Web Design for Pere Marquette Charter Township, Michigan

Pere Marquette Charter Township wraps around the south and west sides of the city of Ludington on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Mason County. It is best known as the traditional site where French Jesuit explorer Pere Jacques Marquette died on May 18, 1675, marked today by a memorial cross on the Buttersville Peninsula. The township also hosts Historic White Pine Village and one of the largest pumped-storage hydroelectric plants ever built.

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

About Pere Marquette Charter Township

Also known as. Pere Marquette Township. P.M. Township. P.M. Twp.

History. Named for French explorer and Jesuit missionary Pere Jacques Marquette, who died on the shore here on May 18, 1675, at about age 37. One of Mason County's three original townships (with Free Soil and Little Sable) when the county was organized in 1855. Burr Caswell arrived in 1847 as the first permanent white settler; his 1849 dwelling, the county's oldest house, served as the original Mason County Courthouse. The 19th-century logging economy gave way to agriculture in the early 1900s, then to a chemical industry and tourism base. Consumers Energy built the Ludington Pumped Storage plant on the Lake Michigan shoreline in the 1960s-70s, straddling the border of Pere Marquette and Summit townships. The 1990 extension of the US-31 expressway north to US-10 opened new commercial development interest in the township.

Local economy. The Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant is a major economic and tax anchor: six reversible Francis pump-turbines at 362 MW each for a total 2,292 MW, operational since 1973, owned 51% by Consumers Energy and 49% by DTE Energy. When built it was the largest pumped-storage hydroelectric facility in the world and functions as a giant grid 'battery,' pumping Lake Michigan water uphill at night. Tourism tied to Ludington and the Lake Michigan / Pere Marquette Lake waterfront is a core industry, along with a legacy chemical industry base. Buttersville Park Campground on the bluffs, between Lake Michigan and Pere Marquette Lake, supports the seasonal visitor economy.

Culture and community. Historic White Pine Village, operated by the Mason County Historical Society on the Buttersville Peninsula, is a living-history village with more than 30 exhibits from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The village complex includes Burr Caswell's house (the county's oldest), the Mason County Sports Hall of Fame and the Scottville Clown Band Collection. The Pere Marquette Memorial Cross and Father Marquette shrine draw visitors commemorating the explorer's death. The township prides itself on preserving small-community quality of life along the shoreline.

What makes Pere Marquette Charter Township distinct. The township almost completely surrounds the city of Ludington on the south and west, yet the two are governed entirely independently. It is named for a man who died there in 1675, one of Michigan's oldest recorded European-contact events. The pumped-storage plant pumps water about 363 feet uphill from Lake Michigan and can reach its full 2,292 MW output in under 30 minutes. Burr Caswell's 1849 home did triple duty as a residence and the county's first courthouse and is now preserved as the oldest house in Mason County.

Pere Marquette Charter Township Landmarks and Local Life

• Pere Marquette Memorial Cross - a white cross on the Buttersville Peninsula bluff marking Father Marquette's death site
• Historic White Pine Village - a 30-plus-exhibit living-history village
• Ludington Pumped Storage Plant and its upper reservoir - roughly 110 feet deep, 2.5 miles long and one mile wide, holding about 27 billion gallons
• Buttersville Park and Campground on the bluffs between Lake Michigan and Pere Marquette Lake.
• Pere Marquette Lake - an inlet of Lake Michigan fed by the Pere Marquette River, at the center of the township