Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1920.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Keego Harbor’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Keego Harbor is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns, #564 of 701 in Michigan. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Keego Harbor’s overall grade.
Few Michigan towns list much on the Register (a typical Michigan town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Keego Harbor’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (32% of Michigan towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to B−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±8.7 points). Two sources give 1900.
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Keego Harbor’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first non-native settlers to the area arrived between 1825 and 1830. Cass Lake drew many wealthy residents to purchase land along the lake for vacationing. In 1890, a railway line was built through Keego Harbor to connect to Detroit and Pontiac, making the area much more accessible. At the turn of the century, a prominent Pontiac lawyer, Joseph E. Sawyer, purchased and platted land just to the southwest along Orchard Lake. He built a canal to connect the smaller Dollar Lake to Cass Lake and declared the area to be a harbor on the eastern edge of Cass Lake. He named the area Keego, which was a phonetic spelling of the Anishinaabemowin word "giigoonh" meaning "fish." The spelling Keego comes from the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The community was originally part of West Bloomfield Township before incorporating as an independent city in 1955.
In 1900, according to Wikidata. Keego Harbor’s post office opened in 1920, and the census of 1960 counted 2,761 people here.
How does Keego Harbor rank for history?
Keego Harbor is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns, #564 of 701 in Michigan. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Keego Harbor?
24% of Keego Harbor’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.7 points), against a typical 12% for a Michigan town; the median home was built in 1975.
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).
From Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), 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.
