History of Traverse City, Michigan. A collection of stories from the 1850s logging on the Boardman River to 1940s pilot training on mini-aircraft carriers on Lake Michigan; from the brand new Park Place Hotel to Dick Basset's hermitage on Bassett Island; from major crossroads like Traverse City, Michigan and Charlevoix, Michigan to obscure sidings like Mabel and Blackwood; the leading players and minor characters on the expanding Grand Traverse stage kept things busy here for 100 years. That was the way it was.