Some communities are identified with a prominent founder.

But Glen Arbor is often said to have been established by the "Three Johns" - John LaRue, John Dorsey and John Fisher.

LaRue, a trader from Chicago, came north from Chicago "for his health" in 1847. Although he returned to Chicago that year, he returned the following year and is generally credited with being the first permanent Leelanau County mainland settler.

John Dorsey, a barrel maker from Chicago, came north in 1851 after some persuasion from LaRue.

John E. Fisher came to Leelanau from Wisconsin in 1854 with his wife, Harriet, who has been generally credited with giving the fledgling community its name. Fisher built a sawmill, dammed the Crystal River and built a gristmill. He was followed by generations of Fishers who resided in the Glen Lake-Empire area.
Glen Arbor was “officially” granted a post office on July 6, 1857. It is said that, prior to that, an old hollow tree served as an unofficial local post office.

George Ray was the first postmaster. Ray was later “port inspector” when Glen Arbor was designated an official “U.S. Port of Entry” by the federal government. Ray was “headquartered” at his own dock, according to Glen Arbor author George Weeks, who also noted that the village’s docks, so vitally important to the community in its first several decades, are now all gone.

Sawmills, farming, and other activities gradually became less important at Glen Arbor, but tourism, once it got started, never faltered.

At first, “resorters” arrived by ship, then, gradually, in their own automobiles. Glen Arbor never had a railroad, except for a very short line to haul timber to a sawmill.

Glen Lake, which was once claimed by National Geographic magazine to be the world’s third most beautiful, was a major draw, but there was also Lake Michigan, the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and the Crystal River.

And Glen Lake had other communities spring up along its shores – Glenmere (just south of the Narrows) and Burdickville. Each of these two communities once had its own post office. The one at Glenmere was established Jan. 31, 1905, with Richard Tobin as postmaster. The Burdickville post office goes back to Jan. 13, 1868. John Helm, who had arrived in the village a year earlier, was the first postmaster.

In 1870, the sawmill burned down and was not rebuilt. The community was said to have become a “ghost town” by 1912. And yet, the name Burdickville very much endures to this day, and certainly more so than Glenmere.

Just to the west of Glen Arbor, tiny Glen Haven was once a busy spot.

Established around a dock jutting out into Lake Michigan, the community was a “company town” ruled by “King David” – David Henry Day. In some senses, Day was a visionary. He was a promoter of reforestation, highways and state parks. When he died in 1928, the county was just beginning to evolve into what it is today.

His last surviving child, Marian Warnes, died just last year, as well as a grandson, D. H. Day III.

The post office there was established Oct. 28, 1869. Enos Matthews was the first postmaster. Curiously enough, the post office was closed May 5, 1879, but re-opened the following month, on June 22. When it closed again, however, on Dec. 31, 1936, it was for good.

The village, maintained by the National Park Service, provides a window into the past.

Alone among several former villages, Glen Arbor has retained its post office and there are about as many businesses today as the community has ever had. Still, it never did become very big.
And that’s a large part of its appeal to visitors and residents alike.