Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a research expedition. Val Klump, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985. The first person to reach the deep bottom of Lake Michigan was J. The volume rarely fell below 50% after the Civil War even with the major expansion of railroad shipping. For example, 90% of the grain shipped from Chicago travelled by ships east over Lake Michigan during the antebellum years. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan was integral to the development of Chicago and the Midwestern United States west of the lake. French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. With the advent of European exploration into the area in the late 17th century, Lake Michigan became used as part of a line of waterways leading from the Saint Lawrence River to the Mississippi River and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. By the late 18th century, the eastern end of the straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, a British colonial and early American military base and fur trade center, founded in 1781. In 1673, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet and their crew of five Métis voyageurs followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters, in their search for the Mississippi River. Ignace, Michigan, site of a French Catholic mission to the Indians, founded in 1671. Located on the southern side of the straits is the town of Mackinaw City, Michigan, the site of Fort Michilimackinac, a reconstructed French fort founded in 1715, and on the northern side is St. The Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. Lake Michigan is joined via the narrow, open-water Straits of Mackinac with Lake Huron, and the combined body of water is sometimes called Michigan–Huron (also Huron–Michigan). In the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of "Michigan", named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634 or 1638. In the early 17th century, when western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Native Americans: the historic Chippewa Menominee Sauk Fox Winnebago Miami Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples. Their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the next few hundred years, the region was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Native Americans. Some of most studied early human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Native Americans. įurther information: Lake Chicago, Lake Algonquin, Lake Chippewa, and Nipissing Great Lakes
The word "Michigan" is believed to come from the Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ michi-gami or mishigami meaning "great water". Green Bay is a large bay in its northwest, and Grand Traverse Bay is in the northeast. Ports along its shores include Milwaukee and the City of Green Bay in Wisconsin Chicago in Illinois Gary in Indiana and Muskegon in Michigan. Located in the United States, it is shared, from west to east, by the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Lake Michigan is the largest lake by area in one country. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the narrow Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart the two are technically a single lake.
It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume (1,180 cu mi (4,900 km 3)) and the third-largest by surface area (22,404 sq mi (58,030 km 2)), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America.
Map of Great Lakes (Lake Michigan in darker blue)