The Pontiac Company, consisting of 15 members and chaired by Solomon Sibley of Detroit, comprised the first landowners in Pontiac. Two years later the fledgling settlement was designated as the county seat for Oakland County, due in part to the Michigan Territorial Governor Lewis Cass being receptive to the lobbying of The Pontiac Company's members that their recently acquired property was ideal for the county seat location. They followed the Saginaw Trail north from Detroit and determined the settlement should be where the trail and the river crossed. The first European-American settlers arrived in what is now the city of Pontiac in 1818. Developments and exploration were soon to prove that report false. The Saginaw Trail was an important land trail route for indigenous peoples that ran from the Saginaw Bay in Michigan to the Detroit River in present-day Detroit.Įarly European expeditions into the land north of Detroit described the area as having "extreme sterility and barrenness". Present-day Pontiac, Michigan was traversed for thousands of years by indigenous peoples due to the confluence of the Saginaw Trail and the Nottawassippi River the river's indigenous name was replaced with the Clinton River name by settlers coming from New York State where DeWitt Clinton served as Governor. 1912 Buckland Memorial Chapel at Oak Hill Cemetery It is now the site of an Amazon Fulfillment and Distribution facility. After 2001, the stadium continued to be used for concerts and other events until it was demolished in 2018. Super Bowl XVI was played at the Silverdome in 1982. In 1975, the city built the Pontiac Silverdome, the stadium that hosted the Detroit Lions of the National Football League from 1975 to 2001, when the team returned to Downtown Detroit at Ford Field. The City of Pontiac also was home to Oakland Motor Car Company, which was acquired by General Motors in 1909. The Pontiac brand itself was discontinued in 2010 by General Motors. In the city's heyday, it was the site of the primary automobile assembly plant for the production of the famed Pontiac cars, a brand that was named after the city. Truck & Coach/Bus), which manufactured GMC products, and the Pontiac Motor Division. These included Fisher Body, Pontiac East Assembly (a.k.a. The city was best known for its General Motors automobile manufacturing plants of the 20th century, which were the basis of its economy and contributed to the wealth of the region. It was named after Pontiac, a war chief of the Ottawa Tribe, who occupied the area before the European settlers. A part of Metro Detroit, Pontiac is about 20 miles (32.2 km) northwest of Detroit.įounded in 1818, Pontiac was the second European-American organized settlement in Michigan near Detroit, after Dearborn. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 61,606. Pontiac ( / ˈ p ɒ n( t) i æ k/ POHN-(t)ee-ack) is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County in the U.S.
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