[10][11] Prior to European settlement, what is now Traverse City was part of the territory of the Council of Three Fires, an alliance of three Anishinaabe tribes, the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi.

Many more people started flocking to the small community, and in 1881, Traverse City was incorporated as a village.

[20] One line was extended along the bay into Leelanau County, and curved south to a preexisting spur at Lake Ann.

[21] Perry Hannah, by then a prominent Michigan Republican, used his political influence to secure its location in Traverse City.

[23] Twelve housing cottages and two infirmaries were built between 1887 and 1903 to meet the specific needs of male and female patients.

While the hospital was established for the care of the mentally ill, its use expanded during outbreaks of tuberculosis, typhoid, diphtheria, influenza, and polio.

[25] In 1929, Traverse City's first airport, Ransom Field, opened, offering flights to Grand Rapids.

For three years, while the high school was being rebuilt, classes were moved to the Perry Hannah House, the former residence of the city's founder.

[26] In 1960, the high school was moved from downtown Traverse City to a new college-style campus on the grounds of Northwestern Michigan College, which opened a few years prior in 1951.

[26] In 1989, the Traverse City State Hospital closed, leaving hundreds without jobs, massive abandoned buildings, and many homeless former patients.

[27][28] On November 3, 2015, Traverse City elected Jim Carruthers,[29] its first openly gay mayor.

[12][32][33] In April 2021, a group composed mostly of White students from two Traverse City area school districts held an online mock slave auction via social media app in a private group chat titled "Slave Trade", wherein they traded their Black student peers for monetary amounts while using derogatory language.

[39] Traverse City is located in the northwest of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, and is located at the head of Grand Traverse Bay, a long, natural harbor separated from the waters of Lake Michigan by the Leelanau Peninsula.

It also snakes through Traverse City's downtown district, effectively forming a peninsula, and dividing it from the Grandview Parkway.

Traverse City is surrounded by a substantial suburban ring, especially within Garfield Township, to its southwest.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a federally protected sand dune on Lake Michigan, is located about 20 miles (32 km) west-northwest of Traverse City, in the southwest of Leelanau County.Traverse City is laid out in a grid plan, with major streets running east–west and north–south.

At this location, toxic runoff from the Coast Guard Air Station contaminated the groundwater along Avenue E.[49] Traverse City has a warm-summer continental climate (Köppen Dfb) close to being a hot-summer continental climate (Dfa).

Lake Michigan especially, but also Grand Traverse Bay, greatly impact the area's diverse coastal weather patterns, which occasionally consist of sudden and/or large amounts of precipitation during the seasonally active periods.

Lake-effect snowfall constitutes a large percentage of the total annual snow accumulation, which averages around 80 inches (203 cm).

Like the rest of Michigan, it is served by Elissa Slotkin and Gary Peters (both Democratic) in the United States Senate.

[69] Located in the harbor of the Great Lakes Maritime Academy is the T/S State of Michigan, a 224-foot (68 m) former Navy submarine surveillance vessel.

A tall ship, the schooner Manitou, is berthed at Traverse City, and offers passages to the public.

During their annual offseason, the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League hold their training camp at Traverse City's Centre Ice Arena.

Founded in 1928, Interlochen Center for the Arts is one of the nation's first and foremost institutions dedicated to the development of young artists.

For over 45 years, The Pathfinder School[98] has been inspiring children to achieve their personal best as lifelong learners, young global citizens, creative thinkers, and stewards of the Earth.

[101] The Traverse Children's House[102] emerged as a unified Montessori school when it opened its main campus in 2002 on North Long Lake Road.

This beautiful building was intentionally designed to enhance the school’s Montessori philosophy and teaching method for infants through 6th grade.

In 2022, this growing young adolescent program became known as Compass Montessori Junior High[103] and moved to its own campus in downtown Traverse City.

Indian Trails offers intercity bus service to St. Ignace to the north and Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo to the south.

[115] The Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City is responsible for maritime and land-based search and rescue in the northern Great Lakes region.