Petoskey, Michigan

Petoskey is a city and coastal resort community in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 5,670 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Emmet County.

Petoskey and the surrounding area are notable in 20th-century American literature as the setting of several of the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway, who spent his childhood summers on nearby Walloon Lake. They are the setting for certain events in Jeffrey Eugenides' novel Middlesex (2002), which also features Detroit and its suburban areas.

History

This area was long inhabited by indigenous peoples, including the Odawa people. The name "Petoskey" is said to mean "where the light shines through the clouds" in the language of the Odawa.

European-American settlers after the American Revolutionary War named the Petoskey stone and the city after Odawa Chief Ignatius Petosega (1787–1885), who founded the community. Petosega's father was a French Canadian fur trader and his mother was Odawa. Indigenous people had lived in this area long before the eighteenth century. With members descended from the numerous bands in northern Michigan, the Little Traverse Bay Band is a federally recognized tribe that has its headquarters at nearby Harbor Springs, Michigan. It also owns and operates a gaming casino in Petoskey.