Portage Lake is a natural lake, located in Onekama Township in Manistee County, Michigan. The village of Onekama, Michigan is situated at the northeastern end of the lake.HistoryThe Lake was first identified as Portage Lake in 1837, when Joseph Stronach named the natural stream at Portage Point that flowed into Lake Michigan as Portage Creek. In that same year, the U.S. Government survey identified the lake as "O-nek-a-ma-engk or Portage Lake". The 26th Congress first published this survey information. The first map to show and to name the lake was entitled "The State of Michigan and the Surrounding Country," published by John Farmer of Detroit in 1844.The lake was first formed during the Wisconsinian glacial age (10,000 to 75,000 years ago) as an arm of Lake Michigan that later closed. It has a 15808acre watershed with a number of ground-fed small streams.In more recent times and up until May 14, 1871, the lake was a landlocked body of water with a water level about 12 to above the level of Lake Michigan. On that date in 1871, homesteaders around the lake, who had objected to the practices of the saw mill owner at Portage in raising the lake level to power their saw mill, dug a channel through the narrow isthmus about a mile south of the natural outlet at Portage Creek.This new man-made channel lowered the level of Portage Lake to that of Lake Michigan and dried out Portage Creek. As a result of this, the small community at Portage relocated to the previously submerged far northeastern corner of Portage Lake under its official new Post Office name, Onekama, in 1871. The man who had managed the Portage Mill, Augustine W. Farr became the key figure in establishing the town in its new location and in beginning to lobby for the designation of Portage Lake as a harbor of refuge.
