Bay City was once the camping
ground of the Chippewa Indian…later the hub of specialized industries…and
today…a city that tells a story of its sense of place through historical
attractions, eco-tourism, the arts, interesting shoppes and dozens of
cafes and eateries. Situated near the mouth of the Saginaw River, which
joins the Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron and the Great Lakes Waterway, Bay City
continues to be an important center of commerce.
More than 150 years have elapsed
since Leon Tromble accepted a federal government assignment and built
a small log house on the bank of the Saginaw River
In 1835, Tromble’s
nephews Joseph and Mador built the first frame house in Bay City, which
also served as a trading post, thereby qualifying these gentlemen as Bay
City's first businessmen.
In 1822, Saginaw County had
been established…extending to Saginaw Bay. Court cases for the bayside
communities meant a three-day journey to Saginaw, so the citizens of the
area voted in 1854 to separate from Saginaw County, forming what is today
known as Bay County.
Bay City, nestled in the Saginaw
Valley, was in those days located in the midst of a fruitful pine forest,
and it was the cutting of those pines, and other tress, that crowned the
area "Lumber Capitol of the World."
The actual year was 1844 in
which the lumber industry has its start in Bay County when a mill was
constructed at the mouth of the Kawkawlin River. In the following years,
lumbering became a boom industry by the time that the Sage Mill was erected
in 1865. In one period, at the height of the lumbering activity, more
than 50 mills were active in the Bay City area. By 1888, over four billion
feet of lumber had been cut, enough to circle the globe with a walk-way
of two-inch planks, four feet in width. It was in 1850 the salt basin,
which underlies the area, was tapped and this too progressed just as the
lumber business had.
One of the earliest new industries
was boat building, including a shipyard which launched the first 600 foot
Great Lakes steel freighters. Bay City built a large variety of craft
from before the beginning of World War II. It turned out U.S. Destroyers,
even several missile vessels for the Australian Navy, along with luxurious
yachts, including the Presidential Yacht named "Honey Fitz"
during the Kennedy administration.
Bay County is also rich in
agricultural products including sugar beets, potatoes, corn, soybeans,
wheat and oats. One of the largest sugar refineries east of the Mississippi
is Bay County's Monitor Sugar Company.