Why Pinconning calls itself Michigan's Cheese Capital

Pinconning calls itself Michigan’s Cheese Capital, and the nickname makes more sense once you know the town’s lumber-to-dairy story. Pinconning began as a lumber settlement in 1872. Its name comes from a local Chippewa word the city translates as “potato place” or “a place where wild potatoes grow.” As logging faded, dairy farming took its place. A creamery opened in 1907, and cheesemaker Daniel Horn moved from Wisconsin to Pinconning.

Horn developed the Colby-style formula known as Pinconning cheese in 1915. It could be stored above 40 degrees, which mattered before modern refrigeration. His daughter Inez Wilson opened Wilson’s Cheese Shoppe across from his factory in 1939. The City of Pinconning calls it Michigan’s oldest cheese store; the same location still sells Horn’s original recipe. Pinconning also credits Inez’s promotion with turning “Cheese Capital of Michigan” into the town’s civic identity.

Another Horn daughter, Marie Bennett, and her husband opened what became Pinconning Cheese Co. in 1948. That store did not stay under Horn-family ownership: its company timeline records sales in 1953, 1971, and 1987. Both longtime shops still carry the town’s namesake cheese, but their shared roots are a better way to tell the story than saying the founding family still runs them.