1976 Map of Onekama SW

About this map

Onekama and the neighboring community of Red Park sit at the eastern edge of Portage Lake in this 1976 orthophotograph. This aerial survey provides a clear view of the mid-1970s landscape, where the dense grid of residential development transitions abruptly into agricultural plots and woodlots. The southern portion of the sheet is dominated by the broad, forested corridor of the Manistee River, which snakes through the bottomlands. The photographic detail allows for a study of the shoreline development and the patchwork of field boundaries that characterized Manistee County during this period. As an advance print, this document preserves a specific moment in the region's environmental and civil history just before the late 20th-century expansion.