Once the biggest fishing port in the world

The little community of Bay Port, on Saginaw Bay, has a surprisingly big past. After the railroad arrived in the 1880s, commercial fishing here exploded — boats hauled in herring, walleye, and whitefish by the ton, packed them in iced rail cars, and shipped them to cities back east. By the 1920s and ’30s, Bay Port was known as the largest freshwater fishing port in the world, with dozens of boats working out of one small peninsula.

The fishing isn’t what it was, but the heritage is well preserved: the old fishing district by the water is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Bay Port Fish Company is still in business. The town even claims to have invented the fish sandwich, back in 1949 when a fish company had a herring surplus to sell — which is why, every August, Bay Port throws a Fish Sandwich Festival that draws crowds from all over the Thumb.