Mackinac Island
The car-free island at the meeting of Lakes Huron and Michigan
On Mackinac Island, the loudest traffic is horses. Motor vehicles have been banned in the city since 1898 and across the island since 1901, so its roughly 583 year-round residents and hundreds of thousands of summer visitors travel by bicycle, carriage and foot. Its state highway, M-185, is the only one in the nation where cars are not allowed. The island covers about 3.8 square miles (9.8 km²) in Lake Huron near the Straits of Mackinac, and its limestone heights rise to 890 feet (271 m) above sea level at Fort Holmes.
The Anishinaabe saw a great turtle in the island's shape, and the name Michilimackinac comes from their language. The British built Fort Mackinac in 1780 to control the fur trade, and the Americans held it after the War of 1812. In 1875 Congress made the island the country's second national park, after Yellowstone. When the Army left in 1895, the park passed to Michigan as its first state park, which still covers more than 80 percent of the island, including the limestone span of Arch Rock. The Grand Hotel, opened in 1887, anchors a Victorian resort famous for fudge.