Fort Michilimackinac / Michilimackinac State Park

This fort, built about 1715, put French soldiers at the Straits for the first time since 1701. French authority ceased in 1761 when British troops entered the fort. On June 2, 1763, during Pontiac’s uprising, Chippewa Indians seized the fort, killing most of the small force, and held it a year. When the British moved to Mackinac Island in 1781 this old fort soon reverted to the wilderness. 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 palisade. 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.