MUSKEGON, a city and the county-seat of Muskegon county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Muskegon lake, an expansion of Muskegon river near its mouth, about 4 m. from Lake Michigan and 38 m. N.W. of Grand Rapids. Pop. (1890), 22,702; (1900), 20,818, of whom 6236 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 24,062. It is served by the Grand Trunk, the Pere Marquette, the Grand Rapids & Indiana, and the Grand Rapids, Grand Haven & Muskegon (electric) railways, and by steamboat lines to Chicago, Milwaukee and other lake ports. There are several summer resorts in the vicinity. As the gifts of Charles H. Hackley (1837-1905), a rich lumberman, the city has an endowment fund to the public schools of about $2,000,000; a manual training school, which has an endowment of $600,000, and is one of the few endowed public schools in the United States; a public library, with an endowment of $275,000; a public hospital with a $600,000 endowment; and a poor fund endowment of $300,000. In Hackley Park there are statues of Lincoln and Farragut, and at the Hackley School there is a statue of McKinley; all three are by C. H. Niehaus. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. Muskegon lake is 5 m. long and 12 m. wide, with a depth of 30 to 40 ft., and is ice-free throughout the year. The channel from Muskegon lake to Lake Michigan has been improved to a depth of 20 ft. and a width of 300 ft. by the Federal government since 1867. From Muskegon are shipped large quantities of lumber and market-garden produce, besides the numerous manufactures of the city. The total value of all factory products in 1904 was $ 6 ,3 1 9,44 1 (39.6% more than in 1900), of which more than one-sixth was the value of lumber. A trading post was established here in 1812, but a permanent settlement was not established until 1834. Muskegon was laid out as a town in 1849, incorporated as a village in 1861, and chartered as a city in 1869. The name is probably derived from a Chippewa word, muskeg or muskeg, meaning "grassy bog," still used in that sense in north-western America.
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