The mouth of the Saint Joseph River at present day Saint Joseph was an important point of Miami and Potawatomi travel and commerce, as it lay along a key water route between the
Great Lakes and the
Mississippi River. Both the
Miami and
Potawatomi used this route and would use the area as a camp. The St. Joseph River also allowed for connection with the
Sauk Trail, which was the major land trail through Michigan. In 1669, the mouth of the river was seen by European explorers. French explorer
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, built
Fort Miami on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. In 1678, he waited for the ship
Le Griffon, which never returned. Once the ship was deemed lost, La Salle and his men made the first land crossing of the lower peninsula by Europeans. The next permanent white settler in Saint Joseph was William Burnett, who around 1780 started a
trading post at the mouth of the Saint Joseph River. The post traded food, furs and goods with places including Detroit, Mackinac and Chicago. In 1829,
Calvin Britain, who had come from
Jefferson County, New York, and had taught at the
Carey Mission at
Niles for two years, came to the site of Saint Joseph. Shortly thereafter, he laid out the plat of the village, then known as Newburyport, named after
a coastal city in Massachusetts. Britain was influential in attracting other settlers to the area. Lots sold rapidly and the village flourished. The Saint Joseph river mouth was straightened through a channel and piers were added later. The first
lighthouse in Saint Joseph contends with Chicago's original lighthouse as the first to be built on Lake Michigan. Newburyport changed its name to St. Joseph when it was incorporated on March 7, 1834. After a bitterly fought political contest, Saint Joseph was named the seat of Berrien County in 1894, when
Berrien Springs relinquished that status. The three largest towns in the county,
Benton Harbor, Saint Joseph, and
Niles, each wanted to be the county seat, but none had a majority vote. Once St. Joseph and Benton Harbor voters combined their votes, St. Joseph had enough to win. On October 11, 1898,
Augustus Moore Herring took one of his
gliders, fitted with a motor, to
Silver Beach in Saint Joseph. Herring's machine lifted ever so slightly off the ground and actually flew for seven seconds. Eleven days later, the inventor made another flight of ten seconds. While Herring had a powered heavier-than-air craft, he did not have a way to control it. It was left to the
Wright brothers to perfect controlled flight five years later, and give themselves and
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a place in history that might have ended up belonging to Herring and Saint Joseph.
Transportation history Two major shipping companies operated between Saint Joseph and Chicago during the last half of the 19th century, the Goodrich Transportation Company and the local firm of Graham and Morton. They dominated the traffic at St. Joseph for more than 100 years, although other smaller companies did operate during this time. Starting in 1874, Henry Graham and J. Stanley Morton began operating a steam line out of St. Joseph. Their collaboration would become the Graham and Morton Transportation Company. In 1911,
Louis, Emory, and Frederick Upton began a business that produced household
washing machines. The business soon became a boom and has continued to grow to this day. In 1929, Upton Machine Company merged with Nineteen Hundred Corp., taking the latter name. The company began marketing a line of appliances known as the "Whirlpool" brand in 1948. Within the next decade, Nineteen Hundred changed its name to Whirlpool. Today,
Whirlpool Corporation is the largest manufacturer of major home appliances and maintains a large presence in Benton Harbor and nearby Saint Joseph. Whirlpool has its world headquarters in Benton Harbor. In 1891 the
Silver Beach Amusement Park was opened on land between the lake and mouth of the river in Saint Joseph. Logan Drake and Louis Wallace bought the land from the
Pere Marquette Railroad and added cottages to lure tourists to the lake front. As the park aged and grew in popularity, the pair added many attractions, including concessions, games, pool, a boardwalk and different rides. The first
roller coaster was built in 1904 and was called the Chase Through the Clouds, which was replaced by the Velvet roller coaster (renamed the Comet). Among the most popular attractions were the
carousel and the Shadowland Ballroom, built in 1927. During the 1960s and 1970s, the buildings decayed and the crowds decreased. Finally, crime in the park led police to shut it down in 1970. The
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers is based in St. Joseph. ==Geography==