Oscoda

History

The area was first settled as early as 1867 when the firm of Smith, Kelley, & Dwight purchased land here and platted the community. A post office under the name Au Sable served the area until the Oscoda post office was established on July 1, 1875. The name Oscoda is believed to come from Henry Schoolcraft, who used a shortened form of ossin and muscoda, which means a pebbly prairie. The Lumberman's Monument is located nearby and was dedicated in 1932 in honor of the early lumberjacks that first populated the area. The state of Michigan designated Oscoda as the official home of Paul Bunyan due to early documented publications in the Oscoda Press on August 10, 1906, by James MacGillivray. The article was later revised and published in The Detroit News in 1910. Wurtsmith Air Force Base was a United States Air Force commissioned in 1923 in Oscoda. During the Cold War, it was one of the state's three Strategic Air Command bases that housed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress jets. The air base was decommissioned in 1993. The area is now an ongoing Superfund site due to extensive groundwater contamination. Parts of the defunct air base now serve as the Oscoda–Wurtsmith Airport with no future plans for the rest of the facility. Oscoda was featured in the 2002 documentary film Bowling for Columbine, in which director Michael Moore interviewed two young residents. Eric Harris, one of the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, spent some of his early years in Oscoda while his father served in the U.S. Air Force.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , of which is land and (8.42%) is water. The Shore to Shore Riding & Hiking Trail, which is a network of trails, has its eastern terminus in Oscoda. This climatic region is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Oscoda has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,898
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,745
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  4,377
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  4,219
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  4,162
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,899
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,725
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,061

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2015-02-16
  5 km WNW of Alpena, Michigan