The population was 12,450 at the 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste.

Both are named for the Escanaba River, which flows into the Little Bay de Noc of Lake Michigan just north of the city.

The word "Escanaba" roughly translates from Ojibwe and other regional Algonquian languages to "land of the red buck", although some people maintain that it refers to "flat rock".

Early industry was the processing and harvesting of lumber, dominated in this area by Daniel Wells Jr., Jefferson Sinclair, and Nelson Ludington.

[8] By the time of the American Civil War, this port was important to the Union as a shipping point for these ores, in addition to lumber.

[11] Initially lumber was still integral to shipbuilding, and supported the construction of houses in cities throughout the developing Midwest.

[13] Until 2017, Escanaba continued to be an important shipping point for iron ore to other Great Lakes ports, especially south to Chicago and northern Indiana.

While most of the peninsula is affected by significant lake-effect snow, Escanaba's winter climate is much milder due to its location on the windward Lake Michigan shoreline.

[39] Escanaba established its own Department of Public Safety in 1975, which provides police and firefighting services to city residents.

Director of Public Safety: Robert LaMarche Escanaba is also home to the Delta County Sheriff's Office, which employs ten deputies assigned to road and marine patrol.

Additionally, the city is home to the newly constructed $17.9 million Correctional Facility with a capacity for 160 inmates.

Sheriff: Edward Oswald The Delta County Sheriff's Office participates in the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team (UPSET) as part of a multi-agency operation to arrest criminals engaged in the use, sale, and distribution of drugs throughout Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

[44] It offers various two year degrees and certificate programs ranging from welding, public safety, business, nursing, among others.

WJMN-TV, the local MyNetworkTV television station on channel 3, formerly operated as a satellite of CBS affiliate WFRV in Green Bay.

Radio and television signals originating from Door County, WI across the bay are also generally easily received in the Escanaba area as well.

[citation needed] During the solar eclipse of January 24, 1925, Chicago radio station WJAZ, which had been broadcasting from a "motor truck" mounted portable transmitter, was transported to Escanaba, Michigan, to document the effects of the dimming sun on radio transmissions.

The former Chicago & Northwestern Railroad connected Green Bay to their main system around the same time that they built their mainline to Escanaba.

In 1898, the Escanaba & Lake Superior owned by Issac Stephenson constructed a line from its connection to the Milwaukee Road.

With the creation of the Wisconsin Central railroad, most of the lines in Escanaba were unified in a single operation with the exception of the DMIR and the E&LS.