Built in around the year 1715 by the French, the Fort Michilimackinac is actually not originally a military post. It was constructed to serve as a link in the trading post of the French and as a supply depot for traders that are in the western Great Lakes area. It was also a way to re-establish their presence along the Straits of Mackinac, after a long absence.

The Fort Michilimackinac was then passed on to the British forces when the French lost in the French and Indian War. The Brits continuously used it as a major trading post, until the Ojibwe took it from them after killing all the British inhabitants on the site in 1763.

Fort Michilimackinac is the most comprehensively excavated early French sites in the US. It is now operated as a tourist attraction as a part of the Colonial Michilimackinac State Park. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.