Muskegon is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, and is the largest populated city on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. At the 2010 census the city population was 38,401. The city is the county seat of Muskegon County. It is located at the southwest corner of Muskegon Township, but is administratively autonomous.The Muskegon Metro area had a population of 172,188 in 2010. It is also part of the larger Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Muskegon-Combined Statistical Area with a population of 1,321,557.HistoryEarly inhabitantsHuman occupation of the Muskegon area goes back seven or eight thousand years to the nomadic Paleo-Indian hunters who occupied the area following the retreat of the Wisconsonian glaciations. The Paleo-Indians were superseded by several stages of Woodland Indian developments, the most notable of whom were the Hopewellian type-tradition, which occupied this area, perhaps two thousand years ago.During historic times, the Muskegon area was inhabited by various bands of the Ottawa and Pottawatomi Indian tribes. In 1830 Muskegon was solely an Ottawa village. Perhaps the best remembered of the Indian inhabitants of the area was Ottawa Indian Chief, Pendalouan. A leading participant in the French-inspired annihilation of the Fox Indians of Illinois in the 1730s, he and his people lived in the Muskegon vicinity during the 1730s and 1740s until induced by the French to move the settlement to the Traverse Bay area in 1742.
