The city of Manistee is the county seat of Manistee County. The name "Manistee" is from an Ojibwe word first applied to the Manistee river. The derivation is not certain, but it may be from ministigweyaa, "river with islands at its mouth". Other sources claim that it was an Ojibwe term meaning "spirit of the woods". On October 8, 1871, the town was practically destroyed by fire; on the same day the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire. Port Huron and Holland also had fires that destroyed the cities In its heyday, Manistee was home to a booming logging industry. Silas Overpack was a famous resident in the later part of the 19th century. His well-known invention was his logging wheels, which were used in the logging industry from about 1875 until the later part of the 1920s. In the late 19th century, Manistee was one of the leading shingle manufacturing cities in the world. Manistee remains associated with the salt industry.
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