Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Port Sanilac

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Port Sanilac

Port Sanilac’s post office opened in 1857, and 21% of its homes were built before 1940

3 places in town are on the National Register. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1963 on, and the census since 1880.

1857first post office
3on the National Register
21%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Port Sanilac’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Port Sanilac began

When was Port Sanilac founded?

1857

The Port Sanilac post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 595 in 18802020 census: 567169 years
Founding year: the first Port Sanilac post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Port Sanilac’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.Shrank, then grewLost two-thirds of its people between 1880 and 1920, then grew 4-fold.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Port Sanilac’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Port Sanilac’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
1 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewSeal of: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
People over time

Port Sanilac, census by census

010020030040050060070018801900192019401960198020002020595 in 1880Low: 135

Lost two-thirds of its people between 1880 and 1920, then grew 4-fold.

14 censuses, 1880–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Port Sanilac’s Wikipedia page.

The story

How Port Sanilac came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Port Sanilac.

Read it all →

This village was originally a lumberjack settlement on the shore of Lake Huron named "Bark Shanty." In the late 1840s and 1850s, the settlement gained its first sawmill, schoolhouse, and general store. In 1854, Bark Shanty's first post office opened. In 1857 the village was renamed to Port Sanilac, as it is in Sanilac Township in Sanilac County. Local legend attributes the name to a Wyandotte Indian Chief named Sanilac. See List of Michigan county name etymologies.

Local landmarks include the Port Sanilac lighthouse (burning kerosene from its opening in 1886 until its electrification in 1924) and a twenty-room Victorian mansion (now the Sanilac County Museum) built in 1872 by a horse-and-buggy doctor, Dr. Joseph Loop.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Port Sanilac, 1963 to 2000

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1963On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  3. 1965In the archiveSeal of
  4. 21st century
  5. 2000CensusPopulation peaks at 658
By decade

Port Sanilac, decade by decade

One decade in the archive so far: the 1960s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1960s1 item
Seal of1965Seal of
1970s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
Today4 recent
Port Sanilac, Michigan2013Port Sanilac, MichiganSanilacHall-01s2010SanilacHall-01sPortSanilac-01s2010PortSanilac-01sPort Sanilac Harbor2009Port Sanilac Harbor
On the map

Port Sanilac on the map, 1963 to 1984

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Port Sanilac. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Port Sanilac on the 1963 USGS mapPort Sanilac on the 1984 USGS map1963Port Sanilac sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Port Sanilac.

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.

Seal of
Retake this viewSeal of, 1965

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Port Sanilac’s page.

Retake this view · +15
On the National Register

3 historic places in Port Sanilac

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

places listed
3
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
4
each building in a district counts

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Sanilac Township3 historic placesA

Questions about Port Sanilac’s history

What year was Port Sanilac founded?

The Port Sanilac post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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 Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikidata (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps and U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.