Web Design in Traverse City, MI

Traverse City, Michigan

Traverse City is in Grand Traverse County, with approximately 15,000 residents.

Well-Known Places in Traverse City

Grand Traverse Bay, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Downtown Traverse City.

Traverse City Business Districts

• Downtown Front Street
• US-31 Corridor
• Garfield Avenue

Major Employers in Traverse City

Munson Healthcare, Cherry Capital Airport, Tourism industry, Traverse City Schools.

About Traverse City, Michigan

Traverse City sits at the head of Grand Traverse Bay in northwest Michigan and is the largest city and cultural hub of the northern Lower Peninsula. Nicknamed the 'Cherry Capital of the World,' it produces a large share of the nation's tart cherries, hosts the roughly 500,000-visitor National Cherry Festival, and anchors a booming wine, food, and tourism economy near Sleeping Bear Dunes. A former lumber town, it now blends a restored downtown, dozens of wineries on two peninsulas, and easy access to Lake Michigan beaches.

The Northern Michigan Asylum, later the Traverse City State Hospital, opened in 1885, and its first building went up in Victorian-Italianate style. Northwestern Michigan College, a public community college, was established in 1951. About 10 miles southwest of the city, Interlochen Center for the Arts dates to 1928, while its year-round boarding school, Interlochen Arts Academy, opened in 1962. Traverse City is often called Hockeytown North, a nod to Detroit's Hockeytown nickname, and like Grand Haven it holds the Coast Guard City designation. Each November, Beer Week offers brewery tours, samplings and workshops.

History of Traverse City

• The area was settled June 13, 1847, when Captain Horace Boardman sailed into the Boardman River; Perry Hannah, whose firm Hannah, Lay & Co. bought the Boardman sawmill in 1851 and improved it, is regarded as the city's founding father.
• Rev. Peter Dougherty, a Presbyterian missionary, established a mission at Old Mission in 1839 and planted the area's first cherry trees in 1852; the first commercial cherry orchard followed in 1893.
• Traverse City grew as a lumber town, incorporated as a village in 1881, and became a city on May 18, 1895.

Landmarks and Places in Traverse City

• Grand Traverse Bay and the Boardman (Ottaway) River, which bisects downtown.
• The State Theatre, a restored 1949-era movie palace on Front Street owned by the film festival.
• The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, the redeveloped former state hospital.

The Traverse City Economy

• Tourism dominates the economy, with Munson Medical Center as a major regional employer.
• The Grand Traverse region is a national leader in tart cherry production.
• The wine industry supports 50-plus wineries across the Old Mission Peninsula AVA (established 1987) and the Leelanau Peninsula AVA (established 1982).

Community Life in Traverse City

• The National Cherry Festival is an eight-day July celebration that began in 1925 as the 'Blessing of the Blossoms,' was renamed by the Michigan Legislature in 1931, and now draws roughly 500,000 visitors.
• The Traverse City Film Festival was founded in 2005 by director Michael Moore with author Doug Stanton and photographer John Robert Williams; after ending its annual run it now screens as 'TCFF Tuesdays' at the State Theatre.

Local reference: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org