Michigan's County Courthouses

Cheboygan County

35 CheboyGaN—thereisanoldjokepurportingtoexplain the origin of Cheboygan’s name. a Native american chief who fathered many sons was anxious for a daughter. he emerged from a wigwam as his newborn babe cried for the first time and said to those present,“she boy again.” In actuality, the name comes from “Cha-boia-gan” and means, depending on the chosen authority, place of entry, place of portage, place of harbor, or water passage. historians surmise that the locale earned its name for being the eastern entry point of an inland waterway where canoe paddlers could travel from lake huron to lake michigan and avoid the sometimes rough and treacherous straits of mackinac. the county and its seat bear the same name. For a time, the city had the nickname of “hub City” and “Gateway to the North.” Presently, it also goes by “old rivertown.” a county for the area was authorized in 1840.surveyors by the name of burt and mullett surveyed the region in 1840–43. two large inland lakes bear their names.alexander mcleod, one of the first nonnative settlers, came in 1844–45 from mackinac Island. Jacob sammons was another early pioneer. soon, there were log cabins, a dam, and a waterpowered sawmill, foreshadowing what would become a large lumber boom. the settlement grew into Duncan City, the first county seat of Cheboygan County that now is a ghost town. the county was organized in 1853. a simple wooden building was the courthouse until 1869. the seat was moved to Inverness township in 1860, where a small wooden courthouse was constructed. For $3,000, James Watson built the county’s second courthouse, a mainly wood twenty-eight-by-fifty-five-foot structure completed in 1869. Court was held there on the second floor for thirty years, with county offices on the first floor. the building continues to stand and has since served many purposes: firehouse; disabled veterans’ facility ; community center for churches, scouting groups, and the american red Cross; a boxing gym; city storage; and, presently, private law offices. before the law offices moved in, the building was extensively renovated in 1983. In september 1898 a cornerstone for a grander county courthouse with room for the sheriff and jail was laid in the city of Cheboygan, the new county seat. located west of old Cheboygan County CheboyGaN CouNty Cheboygan’s second courthouse currently houses law offices. 36 Duncan City, Cheboygan was a village in 1877 and gained the status of city in 1889. the courthouse was a large stone and red brick building completed in February 1900 for $35,000. the roof was dark, and in the center jutted out a large and intricate clock tower. Its replacement, a modern building outside of the center of town, was complete in 1969, and the stone building was sold to a paper company, which razed the building in 1970 to create parking spaces for its employees. Inside the current courthouse is a large graphic depiction of the 1898 courthouse with small likenesses of its two predecessors in the upper corners. two other items connecting the current courthouse to its past are the monuments moved from the 1898 location to the new site. thefirstisawarmemorialcappedwithalargegoldstar. the second is a 9,035-pound cannon from the Hartford— the Civil War flagship of admiral Farragut, which saw action at the battles of New orleans,Vicksburg, Port hudson, and mobile. It was first put in place in Petoskey in 1904. Finally, portraits of past circuit judges hanging behind the gallery in the current circuit courtroom suggest continuity in Cheboygan County’s administration of justice. there has been less continuity in Cheboygan’s commerce and industry. a lumber boom fueled the initial rise of the area.For a time,Cheboygan’s primary distinction was the world’s largest sawdust pile. town coffers swelled, and a city-owned town hall and opera theater, one of the few in the country, was built in 1877. Fire destroyed the opulent building in 1886, but it was replaced with a structure that still serves the community. arrival of the railroad in 1882 made the area less dependent on boats. a steep decline occurred due in large part to depletion of area forests and the effect of a tariff. In the short six years between 1894 and 1900, Cheboygan County’s population fell from 9,574 to 6,489 people. the last vestige of lumbering in the area vanished when the final operating mill burned down on November 15, 1928. since...