Fort Mackinac

The British built Fort Mackinac on a limestone bluff above the Straits because their earlier post on the mainland seemed exposed to attack. Beginning in 1780, soldiers and members of the fur-trade community moved from Michilimackinac to Mackinac Island, carrying the strategic center of the upper Great Lakes with them. The fort’s position looked over the water routes that connected Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—and over a region where Indigenous nations, traders, and imperial powers had long negotiated and competed for influence.