Traverse city mi
Located in the American state of Michigan is the so called Cherry Capital of the World - Traverse City. With a population of well over 15,000, Traverse City is the largest city in all of the 21 counties of the northern part of the Michigan state. However, as per the last census in 2005, the Traverse City Micropolitan Statistical Area was only the 13th largest in the state of Michigan with a population to the tune of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand people. Not withstanding the comparitively small population, Traverse City is an important city in the Michigan region - especially the downtown region of Traverse City, which is the most important centre for commercial activity for all the neighbouring seven counties which cover an area of more than 7,000 square kilometres.
In fact, the city of Alpena and Traverse City are the two major cities of the northern Michigan region. Though some part of the the city falls in the territory of the Leelanau County, Traverse City is the county seat for the Grand Traverse County. It is situated at the head of the Grand Traverse Bay which is a part of the famous Lake Michigan. It is right on the base of the Leelanau as well as the Old Mission Peninsulas. Another interesting geographical feature of the city is the Boardman Lake which is formed by the Boardman River just before it flows into the Grand Traverse Bay. Traverse City is spread over an rea of 22.5 square kilometers with a substantial part of it - nearly one square kilometre - being covered by water.
The city has quite an interesting history behind it. The city got its name from the Grand Taverse Bay on which it lies. And the bay itself was named so by French voyagers of the 18th century who travelled across the wide mouth of the bay. Having made this long crossing which in French translates to la grande traverse, they named the bay Grand Taverse Bay. As such, the city traces its origins back to the mid nineteenth century. In the year 1847, a certain Captain Boardman from the state of Illinois, bought some land towards the western part of the Grand Taverse Bay, right at the mouth of the Boardman River. As you can probably guess, the Boardman River was named so only much later on and that too in the memory of this Captain Boardman. The captain had commercial reasons behind purchasing this land. In 1847 itself, he along with his son and his employees built a sawmill on this land. But he was not able to run this mill successfully and so he sold it to Hannah, Lay & Co. just four years later in 1851. Hannah, Lay & Co. made significant investment in the sawmill resulting in massive improvements in the infrastructure and with it, they completely turned around the fortunes of the region. And soon the sawmill was attracting large numbers of new settlers to the region.
And now the story of how the name Traverse City came about. Towards the end of 1852, Mr. Lay of Hannah, Lay & Co. used his contacts in Washington to get the U.S. Post Office to start a new post office in his settlement around the sawmill. At that time, the only post office which was operational in and around the Grand Traverse Bay was the one at Old Mision. Mr. Lay asked the U.S. Post Office to name the new post office as Grand Traverse City because that was how the new settlement had become popular. However, officials of the U.S. Post Office department suggested to him that he should drop the word "Grand" from the name so that there was no confusion between the new post office and the existing one at Old Mission. And from that time on, the settlement came to be known by the name of Traverse City.
A majority of the city's population of about 15,000 is White. In fact more than 96% of the populace is White. The only other race to play any significant part in the city's population is Hispanic. The city has a fairly average population density of 667.2 people per square kilometer. The median age of Traverse City is 38 and the populace is fairly evenly divided across all age ranges. As far as the male to female ratio is concerned, for every 100 females there are 90.5 males only. They city has a healthy per capita income of $22,247. This is primarily because of the fact that less than 8% of the population is below the poverty line. Traverse City is a home rule charter city as per the Home Rules Cities Act which was incorporated in 1895. The governance of the city is the responsibility of a seven member legislature which consists of a mayor and six commissioners, all of whom are elected by the people. In addition there is a city manager who is appointed to look after the operations of the city in the capacity of a chief executive officer.
Traverse City is a major tourist destination. The city has numerous tourist attractions but perhaps the biggest of the lot is the the National Cherry Festival which is held every year in the first week of July. Apart from cherries, the festival also has numerous parades, fantastic fireworks and lots of entertaining live music. According to estimations, the region around Traverse City produces nearly 360,000,000 pounds of cherries every year. Of the various different varieties of cherries produced in the region, the most popular Montmorency cherry or "pie cherry", Ultser or sweet cherry and the Balaton cherry. In fact the cherries of the region are so popular, that Traverse City has been widely proclaimed as the Cherry Capital of the World.
In addition to cherries, the region also produces lots of grapes which are used to make quality wine. Other tourist attractions of the city include the numerous freshwater beaches, the amazing golf resorts, the vineyards and the National Lakeshore. Another attraction is the Traverse City Park which has more than 250 campsites as well as a beach on the eastern part of the Grand Traverse Bay which is quarter of a mile long. In fact, Traverse City is only second to Mackinaw City in the list of most popular tourist destinations of Michigan. A comparatively small city, Traverse City, is nonetheless a fine city to both live and holiday in.
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