Cadillac's two lakes and the canal that built the town

Cadillac sits between two big lakes — Lake Cadillac, right in town, and the even larger Lake Mitchell just to the west. What ties them together is a little man-made channel called the Clam Lake Canal, and it’s the reason the city is here at all.

Back when this was all white pine, the two lakes were called Little Clam and Big Clam. In 1873 a lumberman named George Mitchell had a canal dug across the narrow strip of land between them, so logs cut on the far lake could float straight to the sawmills and the railroad on the near one. The town that grew up around those mills was first called Clam Lake, then renamed Cadillac in 1877 after the French explorer who founded Detroit. The lakes kept their old Clam Lake names for years before officially becoming Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell.

The canal is still here, running right through Mitchell State Park, and it does something locals love to point out: in early winter the canal freezes over while the two lakes stay open, and then once the lakes freeze, the canal thaws and runs free. The two never seem to freeze at the same time — the water moving through the narrow channel keeps it open.

The lumber era left its mark in other ways too. Cadillac was one of the few timber towns that thrived without a big river to drive logs down, thanks partly to Ephraim Shay, whose geared “Shay locomotive” could haul timber up steep grades that stalled ordinary engines. When the pine ran out, the town turned to manufacturing and never really looked back. Today Cadillac is better known for the outdoors: the two lakes draw anglers and boaters all summer, hundreds of miles of groomed trails make it a snowmobiling hub in winter, and Caberfae Peaks — the oldest ski resort in Michigan — sits in the hills just southwest of town.