How Alger County got its name

Alger County was created on March 17, 1885, carved out of neighboring Schoolcraft County as the iron and lumber towns along this stretch of Lake Superior grew, with Munising as the seat. It was named for Russell A. Alger, who had taken the governor’s office just weeks earlier — naming a new county for the sitting governor was something of a tradition in those years, and Luce County would get its name the same way two years later.

Alger’s life was a true rags-to-riches story. Orphaned as a boy in Ohio, he worked farm jobs to support his younger siblings, taught school, studied law, and then came to Michigan, where he built one of the great lumber fortunes of the age — including timber operations here in the Upper Peninsula. In the Civil War he rode with the Michigan cavalry and rose to the rank of general. After his term as governor he went on to serve as U.S. Secretary of War and later as a U.S. Senator, a post he held until his death in 1907.

Munising still keeps his memory close: a bronze bust of Alger, put up in 1909, stands on the grounds of the old Mather school building downtown, a few blocks from the bay.