Vintage Photos of Saginaw, Michigan: 1900-1930s

Saginaw in a nutshell, so we can get on with the photo gallery...

The land which became known as the city of Saginaw was originally inhabited by the Sauk tribe until they were run out and replaced by the Ojibwe (Chippewa) tribe. The area became a meeting ground for the tribes Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.

Thanks to the hard rains and the low land surrounding the Saginaw River, there was plenty of marshland due to all the constant flooding. Before the swamps were drained later in the 1800s, there was an intolerable infestation of mosquitoes...enough to drive many people away for good.

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In the 1600s, French missionaries arrived, including Henri Nouvel, who made it a point to return time and time again to visit the Native Americans. The French controlled the territory and seemingly the Chippewas, until the British took over in the 1760s.

After the War of 1812, U.S. Troops kicked out all the British. In 1816, Louis Campau opened a trading post. It wasn't very successful, and the U.S. Army used the trading post as the new Fort Saginaw. Thanks to the above-mentioned mosquitoes and the miserable humidity, the troops called it quits and abandoned the fort in 1824.

A year earlier (1823) Campau had platted the town and named it the “Town of Sagana”. Nobody was buying. In July 1830 Saginaw Township was established, and when it was re-platted that December, the town began it climb to the top.

There – that's as brief as I can get it. So now take a look at the gallery below of some vintage photos of Saginaw from the 1900s-1930s!