Muskegon, MI news and local guide

The earliest known Euro-American resident of the county was Edward Fitzgerald, a fur trader and trapper who arrived in 1748 and is said to be buried near White Lake. Between 1790 and 1800 the French-Canadian trader Joseph La Framboise set up a post at the mouth of Duck Lake, and between 1810 and 1820 several other French-Canadian traders, including Lamar Andie, Jean Baptiste Recollect and Pierre Constant, had posts around Muskegon Lake. Settlement began in earnest in 1837 with the exploitation of the area's vast timber, and the lumber boom of the mid-19th century drew many settlers, particularly from Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Some neighborhoods began as separate villages. Bluffton, for example, was founded as a lumbering village in 1862 in Laketon Township, had its own post office from 1868 to 1892 and was annexed by Muskegon in 1889. The city grew on the south shore of Muskegon Lake, a harbor of Lake Michigan, and is now the largest city on the lake's eastern shore. Sources Wikipedia: Muskegon, Michigan