Monroe: an old French town, the "Floral City," and the home of La-Z-Boy

Monroe is one of the oldest towns in Michigan. French traders and farmers settled here along the River Raisin in the 1780s and called it Frenchtown — it was the third European settlement in what’s now Michigan, after Detroit and Sault Ste. Marie. In 1817, when President James Monroe visited the Michigan Territory, the growing town and the new county around it were renamed in his honor. You can still feel that long history in the city’s old riverfront streets and historic districts.

Two more things round out Monroe’s character. In the 1800s it became a major flower- and tree-nursery town — big nurseries shipped plants far and wide — which earned it a nickname locals still use: the “Floral City.” And in 1927 two Monroe cousins, Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker, started a small furniture company here (its first store was even called “Floral City Furniture”) and went on to invent the reclining chair. That company is La-Z-Boy, now a furniture brand sold around the world — and its global headquarters is still right here in Monroe.

To dig into the local history, the Monroe County Historical Museum sits in the heart of downtown at 126 South Monroe Street.