Fort Michilimackinac / Michilimackinac State Park

Fort Michilimackinac, also, Michilimackinac State Park. . , Fort Michilimackinac , Around 1715 Constant Le Marchand de Lignery established Fort Michilimackinac for the French at the site of a Jesuit mission. During the next fifty years as France and Great Britain struggled for control of the fur trade in the Great Lakes region, the fort expanded as a trading settlement and a military post. Soon after hostilities of the French and Indian War ceased, the British took control of the fort in the fall of 1761. Two years later local Chippewa (Ojibwa), angered by British policies, captured the fort as part of Pontiac’s Uprising. The British regained control in 1764. Between 1779 and 1781, during the American Revolution, the British built Fort Mackinac on nearby Mackinac Island and abandoned Fort Michilimackinac. , , Michilimackinac State Park , The British military abandoned and burned Fort Michilimackinac in 1781. Set aside as part of a village park in 1857, the fort site was placed under the direction of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission in 1909. In 1933 the fort's stockade was rebuilt after the park custodian unearthed the foundations of the pallisade. Always popular, especially among campers, the park saw visitation boom after the Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957. In 1959 professional archaeologists began investigating the site. Their findings prompted the dismantling of the stockade and reconstruction of the fort based on archaeological evidence. The excavation of Fort Michilimackinac is one of the longest ongoing archaeological projects in North America. , Michigan Historical Commission – Michigan Historical Center , Registered State Site No. 11, 2009 , This marker is the property of the State of Michigan.