Reeder Township and the family that named it

Reeder Township borders Lake City along the south and east, and it carries the name of one of the first families to settle the county. In the fall of 1868, the Reeder family arrived and built a cabin beside the water then known as Muskrat Lake — the lake we now call Lake Missaukee. So few people lived here in those days that the little settlement itself was at first known simply as “Reeder.”

When the county held its vote on where to put the courthouse in 1873, the settlement by the lake won out over Falmouth to the southeast, and “Reeder” soon traded its name for the friendlier “Lake City.” The township kept the family name. Today Reeder is a mix of lakeshore near town and farm-and-forest country as you head out — close enough to Lake City to be handy, far enough to feel like the country.