Milk River Settlement

The strip of land at the mouth of the Milk River was named Pointe a Guignolet for a grape-like berry that the French fermented into brandy. It later became known as Gaukler Point. The 1702 map of Lac Sainte Claire, attributed to Detroit founder Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, shows an Ottawa village near the Milk River. This is the earliest documented settlement at the point. As early as 1796 some thirty French families lived in the same vicinity. Well into the nineteenth century the Milk River Settlement was called L’Anse Creuse (Deep Bay). At one time part of Erin Township and, later, Lake Township, the community was incorporated as the village of St. Clair Shores in 1925 and became a city in 1951.