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Alpena County, Michigan

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

11historic places

—earliest paper

1840formed

28,907pop. 2020

20cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 11 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1983. Most listings are in or near Alpena, Leer, Alpena Township.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Michigan is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Alpena titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

7 of 11 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

11 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Alpena Central Historic District	Alpena	District	2025
Alpena County Courthouse	Alpena	Building	1983
Alpena Light	Alpena	Structure	2006
Besser, Herman and Hattie (Ely), House	Alpena	Building	2023
Bingham School	Alpena	Building	2020
Fishing Tug Katherine V	Alpena	Structure	2003
IOOF Centennial Building	Alpena	Building	2015
Middle Island Light	Alpena	Structure	2006
Norwegian Lutheran Church Complex	Leer	Building	2013
PEWABIC (propeller) Shipwreck Site	Alpena Township	Site	2016
Thunder Bay Island Light Station	Alpena	Building	1984

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Alpena was formed in 1840 (1840-04-01) from Michilimackinac.

ANAMICKEE (now ALPENA) created from MICHILIMACKINAC (now MACKINAC) and Non-County Area 2 attached to SAGINAW.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Alpena County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
290	8,789	18,254	17,869	20,766	22,189	28,556	32,315	31,314	28,907

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

20 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 20 of 20 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Cathro Cemetery (historical)	45.16306	-83.55417
Evergreen Cemetery	45.06473	-83.46747
German Cemetery	44.9175	-83.48303
Grace Lutheran Cemetery	45.06166	-83.46277
Green Cemetery	45.05721	-83.74777
Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery	45.06249	-83.46472
Herron Saint Rose's Cemetery	45.02221	-83.64388
Holy Cross Cemetery	45.06	-83.46497
Hubbard Lake Cemetery	44.87666	-83.58777
Leer Lutheran Church Cemetery	45.19749	-83.71944
Long Rapids Cemetery	45.12721	-83.72083
Pilgrims Rest Cemetery	45.1525	-83.60415
Pine Grove Cemetery	45.06332	-83.46388
Saint Catherine's Cemetery	44.90471	-83.48944
Saint Matthew Cemetery	44.95361	-83.62942
Saint Paul Cemetery	44.95417	-83.62914
Salem Lutheran Church Cemetery	44.91777	-83.62972
Sanborn Township Cemetery	44.92111	-83.43386
Spratt Cemetery	44.97278	-83.77443
Wilson Cemetery	45.02	-83.60664

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Alpena County, Michigan

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.