Greilickville, Michigan

Greilickville is an unincorporated community in Leelanau County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a census-designated place (CDP) used for statistical purposes and has no legal standing as a municipality. The population was 1,415 at the 2000 census.The area is on Grand Traverse Bay just north of Traverse City and is a part of that city's urban area. The Traverse City Harbor is located in Greilickville. The CDP includes a larger area extending further inland than the settlement concentrated on the waterfront.HistoryThe area was first known as "Norristown", after Seth and Albert Norris who opened a gristmill there in about 1853. In the mid-1850s, Bohemian native Godfrey Greilick and his sons built a small, water-powered sawmill. Greilick's original name was Gottlieb Greulich and he escaped furtively from his hometown of Chrastava in 1842, because he owed a lot of money. The Greilick brothers built a steam-powered mill in a few years. Until its destruction by fire in about 1907, the mill was one of the most important on Grand Traverse Bay, cutting eight and one-half million feet of hardwood lumber in 1883. Other industries in the nineteenth century included a brickyard, brewery, and tannery. When the Manistee and Northeastern Railroad entered town in 1892, the station was called "Greilicks" and the surrounding community also took this name. In 1961, when Greilickville's population was about 900, a special election was held in sections 28 and 33 of Elmwood Township, including Greilickville, to decide a proposal regarding making those areas a home-rule village called Elmwood. The proposal was defeated by a vote of 238 to 88.