LOCATION OF FOREST HOME TOWNSHIP,

 

Forest Home Township is centrally located among the fifteen townships in Antrim County. Forest Home Township is surrounded by water except on the north boundary (Central Lake Township), which is 2.6 miles in width and 2.25 miles of its eastern boundary which it shares with the Village of Bellaire and Kearney Township. Torch Lake, Lake Bellaire, Clam Lake, and Intermediate Lake along with Intermediate River and Grass River form the water boundaries of the Township. Forest Home Township is approximately twenty-five miles northeast of Traverse City, sixty miles southwest of the Mackinaw Bridge, and two hundred miles north of Lansing, the state capital.

 

Forest Home Township's shape differs from that cf a typical surveyed township in Michigan, because it is not a square shape and is only 23.6 square miles as opposed to 36 square miles (see Location Map).

 

HISTORY OF FOREST HOME TOWNSHIP

 

Antrim County was first settled in the area now known as Elk Rapids in 1849. When new areas in the United States were settled, the settlements were generally located at a junction of transportation routes. Elk Lake discharging into Grand Traverse Bay provided just such a location. Boats were the primary means of transportation in and around the state. One could travel up the Chain of Lakes into the interior of what has become Antrim County and reach the area we know as Forest Home Township. The early economic activity of the area consisted of fur trapping and logging. Upon the end of the logging activity, farming become a viable means of survival.

 

Logging began in the late 1860 and continued into the early 1900's. Logs from the interior of Antrim County were floated via the rivers and lakes to saw mills where they were milled and placed on boats to be shipped to locations around the Great Lakes to aid in the construction boom. The majority of the timber harvested from the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan and the interior areas were sent to Chicago. The lower quality wood that was not worth shipping to other locations were generally used for local construction. Grass Lake, (Lake Bellaire) was home to a saw mill at a location known as Clayton's Landing, now the location of a group of cottages.

 

Forest Home Township was organized by the Antrim County Board of Supervisors in January of 1871 with the first annual meeting being held on April 3rd of that same year. The Village of Bellaire was designated and laid out as the county seat in 1879. This designation assisted in ensuring the importance and lasting economic impact Bellaire would have on the area even today. This area experienced the first railroad service in 1889 with the Pere Marquette line being constructed through Bellaire. The advent of

 

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