Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Onaway, MI

Onaway is a city in Presque Isle County in the northeastern Lower Peninsula, just east of the Cheboygan County line.

The community began as a farming settlement that received a post office on October 23, 1882, named Shaw for its first postmaster, civil engineer Thomas E. Shaw.

Merritt Chandler arrived in 1886 and platted the community under the name Onaway; after a brief interlude when the post office was called Adalaska (1893–1897), the name Onaway stuck.

Onaway was incorporated as a village in 1899 and became a city in 1903.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Onaway's American Wood Rim Company was one of the world's largest makers of wooden automobile steering wheels, producing approximately 65% of the world's wooden steering wheels — an era summed up by the slogan "Onaway Steers the World."

At its 1920s peak, Onaway's population reached roughly 4,000, and the wood products factory employed between 1,200 and 1,500 people.

On January 14, 1926, a fire that started in a sanding machine destroyed the American Wood Rim factory; owner Edward Lobdell moved the plant to Alma rather than rebuild, and Onaway's population fell by about half.

In 1908, Chandler funded an imposing courthouse in Onaway in a bid to win the county seat from Rogers City; the seat stayed in Rogers City, but county court sessions alternated between the two towns until the 1940s.

Onaway now bills itself as the "Sturgeon Capital of Michigan," and a lake sturgeon streamside rearing facility operates on the nearby Black River, where the fish migrate down to the Cheboygan River and on to Lake Huron.

Onaway had 890 residents at the 2020 census, up slightly from 880 at the 2010 census.