Algonac, the birthplace of Chris-Craft

If you’ve ever admired a gleaming wooden speedboat, all polished mahogany and chrome, there’s a good chance its story starts in Algonac. This little town on the St. Clair River is the birthplace of Chris-Craft, and a lot of people call it the birthplace of American powerboating, too.

It began with a local boy named Christopher Columbus Smith, who built his first boat as a teenager back in the 1870s and never stopped. A historical marker in town credits him with dropping a motor into a boat here in 1893, three years before Henry Ford built his first automobile, and so helping invent the sport of motorboating. The family business he started grew into Chris-Craft, which became the world’s largest builder of mahogany powerboats and, for years, the biggest employer around.

Smith had a famous friend and protege, Gar Wood, known as the Gray Fox of Algonac. Wood was a racing legend who, in 1932, roared down the St. Clair River at about a hundred and twenty-four miles an hour to set a world speed record. The river out front was where these men tested the fastest boats on earth.

That heritage is still a point of pride. You can see beautifully preserved old Chris-Crafts and Gar Wood racers at the town’s maritime museum, and every summer Algonac hosts an antique boat show where the woodies take to the water once again. You can find the museum’s hours and the show dates at achistory.com.