Michigan's German Settlers

Fifteen German immigrants from Franconia, Bavaria, led by the Rev. August Craemer, founded Frankenmuth in 1845. They were advised to settle here by the Rev. Frederick Schmid, Lutheran pastor of Ann Arbor’s German colony, founded in the 1820´s. Other German agricultural villages were founded in the Saginaw Valley in the 1840´s and ´50´s. Here, as in many other areas of Michigan, German settlers have contributed greatly to the state’s cultural heritage.