24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Petoskey, MI

Petoskey is a city and the county seat of Emmet County, a coastal resort community on Little Traverse Bay on the east shore of Lake Michigan.

Originally called Bear Creek, Petoskey is named for Odawa Chief Ignatius Petosegay, whose name is said to mean "rising sun" or "where the light shines through the clouds."

Petoskey received its charter in 1879 and grew into northern Michigan's Victorian-era resort town, filled with century-old brick buildings.

Petoskey had 5,877 residents at the 2020 census and about 2,650 households, though its population swells dramatically with summer visitors.

Census QuickFacts reports that only about 61% of Petoskey's homes are owner-occupied, and the median owner-occupied home value is about $364,100 — a reflection of its second-home resort market.

Petoskey is famous for Petoskey stones, fossilized ancient coral found along its beaches that have been Michigan's official state stone since 1965.

Ernest Hemingway spent his first 22 summers, from 1899 to 1921, at his family's cottage on nearby Walloon Lake, and he set his Nick Adams stories and his first novel, The Torrents of Spring, in and around Petoskey; he married his first wife at nearby Horton Bay in 1921.

A statue of the young Hemingway stands in Petoskey's Pennsylvania Park, and the Little Traverse History Museum, housed in the renovated 1892 railroad depot, displays dozens of Hemingway photographs and artifacts.

The Little Traverse Wheelway, a 26-mile paved waterfront trail, connects Petoskey with Charlevoix and Harbor Springs along the bay.

Kilwin's, the chocolate, fudge and ice cream chain with more than 150 locations nationwide, was founded in Petoskey in 1947.