Market Street

In 1779 when the British relocated their fortified fur-trading community from the south side of the straits on the mainland to Mackinac Island, they built Fort Mackinac to command a view of the harbor and the settlement below. The new town was enclosed within a protective stockade and nestled beneath the fort’s defenses. The basic street grid of that eighteenth-century fortified village remains. The main thorough- fare, now known as Market Street, stretched nearly a quarter mile from below the fort to a western gate at today’s Cadotte Avenue. Running parallel to it along the shoreline was another street, today’s Main Street. French, British, Odawa, and Ojibway met on Market Street, which was lined with houses and merchant shops. Sainte Anne’s Church occupied the corner of Market Street and what is now Hoban Street from 1780 to around 1819. Market Street remained the heart of the community well into the nineteenth century, during the height of the fur trade era. In 1817 John Jacob Astor established the northern headquarters of his American Fur Company here. The company’s business complex included the agent’s house, a clerk’s quarters, a warehouse, and a retail store. Robert Stuart, the resident agent of the fur company, lived in this house. As tourism developed later in the century, hotels and rooming houses appeared on Market Street, adding a new layer to its character. By 1860 most commercial activity had shifted to Main Street. Since then, Market Street has remained a mixed-use district of Mackinac Island. The street includes buildings used as businesses, hotels, residences, and public amenities. Their different styles reflect more than two centuries of Market Street’s layered history.