Glen Arbor Township’s post office opened in 1857, and 6 of its places are on the National Register
Most of Glen Arbor Township was built recently: 4% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1992. 6 places in town are on the National Register, among them three historic districts with 32 buildings between them. Below: 18 old photos and papers and maps from 1956 on.
From Glen Arbor Township’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers
How Glen Arbor Township began
When was Glen Arbor Township founded?
1857
The Glen Arbor Township post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Glen Haven (1869), Port Oneida (1886) and Miller Hill (1891), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 757169 years
Founding year: the first Glen Arbor Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Glen Arbor Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The land around Glen Arbor was first inhabited by Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi peoples, all members of the Council of Three Fires.
By 1886, lumberman D.H. Day bought vast swathes of land north of Glen Lake. He had built a sawmill on the nearby Crystal River, and developed the nearby town of Glen Haven, which led to the growth of Glen Arbor. By the 1900s, the area was recognized as a tourist mecca. In 1971, much of Day's former land was converted to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Glen Arbor's name was coined by the wife of one of the area's early settlers. It is a combination of Glen Lake and grapevines that adorned trees in the area.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Glen Arbor Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1956North Manitou sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Glen Arbor Township.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewGlen Haven Cannery
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Glen Arbor Township’s page.
The Glen Arbor Township post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
What is on the National Register in Glen Arbor Township?
6 listings: 3 buildings, among them the Hutzler's Barn (listed 1978, the first), and 3 historic districts, the Glen Haven Village Historic District, the South Manitou Island Lighthouse Complex and Life Saving Station Historical District and the George Conrad Hutzler Farm, with 32 contributing buildings. 38 historic buildings in all.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From the Library of Congress (18), the National Register of Historic Places (6), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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