Alpena, Michigan

Alpena (/ælˈpiːnə/ al-PEE-nə) is the only city in and the county seat of Alpena County, Michigan, United States. The population was 10,197 at the 2020 census,^{[citation needed]} making it the third most populated city in the Northern Michigan region, after Traverse City and Cadillac. The city is surrounded by Alpena Township, but the two are administered autonomously. It is the core city of the Alpena micropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Alpena County and had a total population of 28,907 at the 2020 census.

Alpena is located at the head of Thunder Bay, a bay of Lake Huron. Offshore of Alpena is the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects an estimated 116 historically significant shipwrecks. Alpena is the second-largest American city on Lake Huron, behind Port Huron.

The Alpena area is home to the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi people. These people groups inhabit the area surrounding the Great Lakes, including Michigan. The Thunder Bay Band of Chippewa and Ottawa merged with the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians in the mid-1800s under Chief Way-ge-maw-waw-be.

Alpena County was originally set off from Michilimackinac County as Anamickee County founded in 1840, which in 1843 was changed to Alpena, a pseudo-Native American word — a neologism coined by Henry Schoolcraft, meaning something like "a good partridge country." This was part of a much larger effort to rename a great many of the Michigan counties at the time.

The first European settler at modern-day Alpena was W.F. Cullings, a fisherman in 1835. In 1856, George W. Fletcher and three others from Detroit platted a village by the name of Fremont, after John C. Frémont. The community was briefly renamed Thunder Bay in 1857 before being renamed again to Alpena in 1871. The city of Alpena was officially incorporated by Michigan State Legislature on March 29, 1871.

Most of the city was lost in the Great Michigan Fire of 1871. Less than one year later, on July 12, 1872, Alpena was hit by another fire, the largest in its history, which destroyed 15 acres (6.1 ha) of homes and businesses for a total amount of 65 buildings. The blaze started in a barn and lasted for two hours, killing at least four people and causing at least $180,000 (equivalent to $4,840,000 in 2025) in damages. Alpena was again hit by a disastrous fire on July 11, 1888. In the early 1910s a failed attempt was led by the Alpena Motor Car Company to turn the city into "Automobile City" and compete with Detroit.

In 1920 the population of the city was 11,101, and in 1927 the trade through the city's port was valued over 8 million dollars, and the output of the 24 factories at a little under another 8 million.

The city has a number of notable buildings, including the Art deco Alpena County Courthouse, the I.O.O.F. Centennial Building, and Temple Beth El, one of the oldest synagogues in the United States.