24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Alpena, MI

Alpena is a city in Alpena County, Michigan, and the county seat — it is the only incorporated city in Alpena County.

The first European settler at Alpena was W. F. Cullings, a fisherman who arrived in 1835; the town was platted as Fremont in 1856, briefly renamed Thunder Bay in 1857, and incorporated as the city of Alpena on March 29, 1871.

The name Alpena was coined by the geographer and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft, and it is said to mean roughly 'a good partridge country.'

The 2020 census counted 10,197 people in Alpena living in 4,787 households, making it the third most populous city in Northern Michigan after Traverse City and Cadillac.

Alpena calls itself the 'Sanctuary of the Great Lakes,' sitting at the head of Thunder Bay on Lake Huron's northwestern shore.

Just offshore from Alpena lies the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a federally protected underwater preserve guarding an estimated 116 historic shipwrecks in Lake Huron's cold, wreck-preserving waters.

The Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, the sanctuary's museum and headquarters, stands on the banks of the Thunder Bay River in downtown Alpena.

Most of Alpena burned in the Great Michigan Fire of 1871, and the rebuilt city burned again on July 12, 1872, in a fire that destroyed 65 buildings.

Alpena is a snowy Great Lakes city, averaging roughly 78 to 84 inches of snowfall a year in National Weather Service records.

A state historical marker in Alpena commemorates what was long billed as the world's largest cement plant; the Lafarge cement works and the Besser Company's concrete-block machinery plant remain anchors of the city's industrial base.