Manistee County (pop. 24,733) is west of Wexford County, along Lake Michigan. It’s the only Manistee County in the U.S.
The word “Manistee” was apparently derived from an Ojibwe word meaning “river with islands at its mouth.”
The county seat is the city of Manistee (pop. 6,226), located where the Manistee River flows into Lake Michigan.
Orchard Beach State Park is just north of Manistee.
The Vogue Theatre, in the Art Deco style, opened in Manistee in 1938.
The Ramsdell Theater in Manistee was built in 1903.
The S. S. City of Milwaukee, built in 1931, is a former railroad car ferry that crossed Lake Michigan between Muskegon and Milwaukee. It is now a museum on the Manistee waterfront.
The Manistee Pierhead Light dates from 1927.
The Manistee Iron Works building (1907) is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The village of Bear Lake (pop. 286), northeast of Manistee, is well-known for the yellow cement dinosaur at the Kampville RV Park.
The village of Kaleva (pop. 470) has a four-foot-high grasshopper sculpture, in honor of St. Urho – the mythical Finnish-American Catholic saint.
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Very cool recycled grasshopper. Beautiful lighthouse too.