Local city information for Sault Sainte Marie, MI

Sault Ste. Marie () is a city in and the county seat of Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is at the eastern edge of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the Canadian border, separated from its twin city of Sault Ste. Marie Ontario by the St. Marys River. The population was 16,542 at the 2000 census.

Founded as a mission in 1668 by Father Jacques Marquette, Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in the Midwest.. A fur trading settlement soon grew up at this crossroads on both banks of the river, making the area the center of the 3,000-mile fur trade route extending west from Montreal to the Sault, then to the country north of Lake Superior.

The town was split into two in 1797 (when the Upper Peninsula was transferred from the province of Upper Canada to the United States).

Sault Sainte Marie is Old French for "Rapids of St. Mary's", a reference to the rapids in the Saint Marys River, which joins Lake Superior to Lake Huron. (The spelling Sault-Sainte-Marie is more usual in French, but the name is written without hyphens in English). Both cities and the vicinity as a whole are often referred to as the Sault or the Soo.

The two cities are joined by the International Bridge, which connects Interstate Highway 75 in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Huron Street in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses Saint Marys Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage passing through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal. The city's downtown sits on an island, with the locks to the north, and the Saulte Ste. Marie Power Canal to the south.

The city is the site of the Soo Locks, which lets ships travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. People come from around the world to view up close the ships passing through the locks. The largest ships are long by wide. These are domestic carriers (called lakers) that are too large to transit the Welland Canal around Niagara Falls and thus are land-locked. Foreign ships (termed salties) are smaller.

For centuries Ojibwa (Chippewa) Native Americans had lived in the area, which they referred to as Baawitigong ("At the cascading rapids") after the Rapids of St. Marys River (Michigan-Ontario)|St. Marys River. The Saulteaux branch of the Ojibwa was named after this region.

In 1668, French missionaries, Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette, founded a mission in the area, making the Sault the third oldest city west of the Appalachian Mountains in what is now the United States, and the oldest city in present-day Michigan.

In the 18th century, it became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the North West Company. The fur trader, John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, Ireland, was considered the first European settler in 1790. He married a high-ranking Ojibwa woman Ozhaguscodaywayquay, also called Susan Johnston, who was the daughter of a prominent chief. Their marriage created an alliance with the Ojibwa. They had eight children whom they raised them to speak French, English, and Ojibwe. The Johnsons were leaders in both the Ojibwe and Euro-American communities, and entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially through the years before the War of 1812. As a result of the fur trade, the settlement became a settlement for Ojibwa and Ottawa, Europeans of various ethnicities, and Métis. It was a two-tier society, with fur traders and their families and upper class Ojibwa at the top.

In the aftermath of the War of 1812, society changed markedly over a generation or so. The U.S. built Fort Brady near the settlement, which introduced new troops and settlers, generally Anglo-American. After completion of the Erie Canal in 1832, the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically.

The falls proved a choke point for shipping. Early Lake Superior ships portaged around the rapids, in a lengthy process much like moving a house, a process which could take weeks. Later, cargoes were unloaded and hauled around the rapids and loaded onto other waiting boats. The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855 and was instrumental in improving shipping. Over the years, the lock was expanded and improved.

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