Karen Wils photo An old timer, my dad, standing in the doorway of an old homestead by the Escanaba River.

ESCANABA — Slip through the window of time and enjoy Escanaba in the olden days.

The history of Escanaba is a long and winding one, like the river the city is named for.

It was the great, wide river of flat rocks (limestone) that drew people. The river merges into Little Bay de Noc, creating a watery haven for fish and wildlife. Early native peoples made use of this spectacular fishery. They found good hunting grounds on the shore.

The first permanent white settlement in this area dates back to 1830. A fur trader named Louis A. Roberts and his family came to live by the river. Virgin white pine, bird’s eye maple and birch forests called to a young and growing nation. People came. Axes rang. Sawmills were built.

A surveyor named Eli P. Royce came to the place called “Sand Point” by the big river in 1862. He began to lay out a town. Mr. Royce named the town with the word the Native Americans called the river, “Escanawba,” meaning flat rock. The city of Escanaba was organized in 1863, spelled with a “w.”

Over the years, the spelling was changed to Escanaba. Some of the Native translations — or the white people’s interpretation of them — have changed to include Escanaba meaning “the land of the red buck,” although whitetail deer were not very abundant here prior to the cutting of the virgin forest.

The city of Escanaba grew strong and proud. The area became famous for lumbering, hardwood flooring, commercial fishing, papermaking and the shipping of iron ore.

Today, the river still flows peacefully into the bay calling to future generations.

I wrote the above paragraphs for the City of Escanaba’s web page several years ago. Being a native, born and raised in Escanaba/Delta County, I can proudly say “Escanaba is awesome!”

I would like to welcome all of the people here this weekend for the 70th Annual Upper Peninsula History Conference. You are in for a treat.

Escanaba has a rustic and romantic history filled with fishermen, lumberjacks, railroads and ore boats. From the docks to the dance halls and from the lighthouse to the Tilden house, Escanaba was anything but dull back in her heydays.

The people of Escanaba are true, hardworking, fun-loving families who love the forest, fields, lakeshore and riverside.

Escanaba was put on the map by the I. Stephenson Company and its world-famous wooden flooring, by the ore docks that shipped record amounts of pelletized ore from the mines up north down to the steel factories, by the Bird’s Eye Veneer Company, by an ice skating review in “Life Magazine,” and by being named the “walleye capital of the world.”

So much history has flowed through the mouth of the Escanaba River, from the canoe days of the trappers and traders to the days when the spring break up brought tons of logs spilling to the mills.

The power dams and the paper mill, the street cars and the passenger trains all had a part in the making of our city.

Step back in time to the days of a little cabin by the river.

Enjoy the history conference.

If you are not going to the conference, make time to visit Delta County’s yesterdays by stopping at the Delta County Historical Museum, Lighthouse and Archives this summer. We are very fortunate to have a wonderful historical society here in Delta County.

Step back in time with them and you may meet a great-grandparent or a ghost from yesteryear.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.