Crockery

The Western Michigan region has been inhabited by the Ottawa Native Americans for centuries. It is from this tribe that the county takes its name.The first European explorers in the Ottawa County region were the French-Canadian explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette who passed through the region in the mid 17th century.
European settlement in the area proceeded slowly until the mid 19th century, when zinc was discovered in Crockery Creek in 1858. (Barnes, 1997) In 1872, the town of Nunica was officially incorporated, the name taken from the Ottawa word for zinc. The 1880 census showed approximately 1,000 settlers in the region. (Barnes, 1997)
Nunica experienced rapid growth in population in the early 20th century as settlers came to the region to mine zinc and farm. The settlement process was aided by the Grand Haven-Detroit branch of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad on which Nunica was an important stop. The 1920 census shows Nunica at the peak of its population, with 8,000 citizens.
By 1924 the zinc ore in the region had been completely exhausted. Coupled with a particularly severe influenza outbreak in 1927 that claimed the lives of nearly 800 people from the town, the population of Nunica declined precipitously. The 1930 census shows the population of Nunica as 5,000.