Suttons Bay - always a safe harbor

Suttons Bay was originally established as a camp for supplying fuel to wood-burning steamboats. Harry C. Sutton settled with his crew of woodsmen on the shores of Suttons Bay in 1854 and set about harvesting the multitude of trees along the short and deep within the woods surrounding Suttons Bay. Their primary export was the bark from the trees which helped to fuel the steamboats docking along the shore's edge.

Other than the changes time visits on a community, little has changed in Suttons Bay. Our village still exists to serve the boats and ships that dock in our "safe harbor."

Before the first road was cut through between Traverse City and Suttons Bay in 1862, mail was delivered once in two weeks.

Most travel was by boat, the settlers coming from the East on Lake Huron, and from the West across Lake Michigan. The wood-burning steamboats and the sailing vessels carried freight and cordwood. Steam boats carried wood for their own use, and tan bark to be used for leather tanning, and after the saw mills were built, they carried lumber.

According to an early record, "by 1880 the village had grown to be a lively place of about 250 inhabitants and contained four stores, three docks, two hotels, a brick schoolhouse, a saw-mill, printing office and a new Catholic Church."

Today, whether traveling by car, bus, bicycle or on foot up M-22 to our village, you will suddenly find yourself not on a state highway, but on St. Joseph's Avenue, our main street. We hope you will savor the transformation of "slowing down" just a bit.

We invite you to stay awhile and let us continue doing what we have done since 1854 - serving our visitors through our many fine services, restaurants and shops (including a great bookstore off the beaten path down by the water in the lower level of The Millside Building).

So, please, come and shop in our stores and stay for the day, a weekend, the summer - or the "rest of your life!"