Grawn was founded in the 1870s as
Blackwood after its first settler, James B. Blackwood. The
Chicago and West Michigan Railway was built through Blackwood in 1890, and the village was renamed to
Grawn Station, after Charles T. Grawn, the former superintendent of
Central Michigan Normal School, and later the superintendent of
Traverse City Area Public Schools. In the same year, the name was shortened to Grawn, and the village was given a post office with William H. Gibbs serving as the first postmaster. By 1905, potatoes had become the main crop of Grawn. In December 1995, a fire broke out at Carl's Tire Retreading Company in Grawn. The fire burned for 20 days and led to the evacuation of locals and of Blair Elementary School. In 2003,
PFAS were found at the site and in local wells as a result of chemicals used to extinguish the fire. The community of Grawn was listed as a newly organized
census-designated place for the
2010 census, meaning that it now has officially defined boundaries and population statistics. ==Geography==