Local History

Founded by James Finn who built a lumber camp here in 1896 and named it after Chatham, Ontario.  John H. Gatiss, Jr., became its first postmaster on January 19, 1897.

A station on the Munising Railway, in Rock River Township.  Only the remnants of the camp remained when in 1899 it was made the location of a State  Agricultural Experiment Station.  The village was then developed under the direction of W. G. Mather, President of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company.

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

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