How Frankenmuth Became Michigan's Little Bavaria

Frankenmuth’s Bavarian look is not a village frozen in 1845. It is a newer visitor layer built on a real immigrant settlement. Knowing both parts makes the town more interesting.

In 1845, Pastor August Craemer and 14 other German Lutherans arrived from Franconia, a region of Bavaria. They came to build a church colony on the Cass River and minister to the local Ojibwe people. The settlement’s name joined Franken, for Franconia, with Muth, an older spelling of the German word for courage. Farming came first, followed by the cheese, sausage, milling, and brewing businesses that kept the community’s German identity visible.

The storybook streetscape came later. Frankenmuth’s official timeline says highway access brought more travelers after World War II. The first Alpine-style commercial remodeling appeared in 1957. Fischer’s Hotel adopted a Bavarian exterior and reopened as the Bavarian Inn in 1959, and more Main Street businesses followed during the 1960s. The Bavarian Inn added its 50-foot glockenspiel in 1967. So the heritage is old, while much of the look visitors recognize is a mid-century interpretation of it.

The chicken dinners are big in a way you can measure. Zehnder’s says its dining rooms seat 1,500 people and calls itself “America’s Largest Family Restaurant.” Across Main Street, the Bavarian Inn says its 12 dining rooms seat up to 1,200. Those are the restaurants’ own current descriptions, not an independent national ranking. The annual Bavarian Festival grew from a weeklong 1959 celebration. The covered bridge gives you a quieter walk over the Cass River, and Bronner’s, just outside the center, bills itself as the world’s largest Christmas store.