But Manistee County's population plummeted during the 1920s, as mills shut down and workers left to find jobs elsewhere. The county still has several thousand fewer people than it had in 1899. During the same period, in contrast, the population of Grand Traverse County has more than tripled. Emmet, Crawford, Kalkaska and Otsego counties have all posted significant gains since then, as well. But population growth in most of the region has actually been fairly slow compared to the land rush days of the 1860s and 1870s.
Some areas have only slightly more people today than a century ago.
Living, dying, getting married and getting unmarried were all substantially different in 1899, too. Newborn babies made up a larger percentage of the population at the turn of the century, but people also were dying at a faster rate. Fewer people were getting married - and a lot fewer were getting divorced. The population of the Northwest was relatively young, too. Despite its low fertility, northern Michigan was still an overwhelmingly agricultural area.