Alanson, MI

Alanson is an Emmet County village on the Crooked River, with 778 residents in the 2020 census. U.S. 31 and M-68 meet here, about twelve miles northeast of Petoskey and roughly twenty-five miles south of Mackinaw City and the bridge. The river is the organizing feature. Alanson sits on the Inland Water Route that runs through Crooked Lake, Burt Lake, Indian River, Mullett Lake, and the Cheboygan River, so the downtown has a relationship with boat traffic as well as highway traffic. A short swing bridge crosses the Crooked River beside the village center.

The village was settled in the 1870s and incorporated in 1905 during northern Michigan’s lumber boom. The sawmills have gone, but the old waterway story is still close at hand in the Inland Water Route Historical Society Museum, where photographs and artifacts from the river communities fill a small downtown stop. A boardwalk, riverfront island, shops, the post office, and the Fourth of July parade keep the center tied to local routines. Alanson is a Michigan village where a navigable chain of lakes and rivers, a lumber-era main street, a swing bridge, and the road north to Mackinaw meet.