Attractions

Aerial Color Tours by Aviation North

Alpena County George N. Fletcher Library

Jesse Besser Museum

Churches

Good Shepard Lutheran Church, Ossineke

Heritage through our Ancestors

Baker/Boulanger Family

Boulanger Family

Dagenais Family

Golf Courses

Alpena Country Club

Alpena Golf Club

Skiing & Snowboarding

Chippewa Hills Pathway

Nicholson Hill Road 
Alpena, MI 49707
(800) 425-7362

(517) 785-4251

Three loops totaling 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) are marked and groomed, for novice, intermediate, and advanced cross-country skiers. 

Local History

W. F. Cullings, a fisherman, became the first settler about 1835.  In 1856, George N. Fletcher and three companions from Detroit laid out the village which they named Fremont for General John C. Fremont, but there was another Fremont in Michigan and so this one was given a post office as Alpena, with Daniel Carter becoming its first postmaster on December 2, 1857.

Renamed Thunder Bay (it was near Thunder Bay) on January 4, 1859, but changed back to Alpena on February 11, 1859.  Incorporated as a city in 1871.  Named after its county which was first named Anamickee after a Chippewa Chief, but renamed Alpena, the Indian word for partridge, at the suggestion of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.

Informational excerpts from Michigan Place Names, by Walter Romig, L.H.D.

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