Who we are

Frankenmuth Local is run by Muth Digital, a small web design and Google Maps studio based in Frankenmuth. We're not the city or the Convention & Visitors Bureau. For official visitor information, see frankenmuth.org.

How we keep it honest

• Paid placements are always labeled Sponsored, and paid links are marked as such for search engines.
• Nobody pays to get onto the Bar Crawl or into our recommendations.
• Hours, prices and dates change. If something here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.

A short history of Frankenmuth

In 1845, a small group of conservative Lutheran settlers from the area around Roßtal, in the Franconia region of Bavaria, came to Michigan's Saginaw Valley. The mission was organized by Pastor Wilhelm Löhe of Neuendettelsau and led on the ground by Rev. August Crämer. Its goal was to build a Lutheran community and to minister to the local Chippewa people.

The settlers named their town Frankenmuth: Franken for Franconia, and Mut, the German word for courage. The mission to the Chippewa was short-lived. The German community grew, with farms, mills and, from 1862, a brewery on the Cass River.

Frankenmuth became a city in 1959, the same year the first Bavarian Festival was held. Today the town of about 5,000 welcomes visitors from all over, drawn by its chicken dinners, the Glockenspiel, the covered bridge over the Cass River and a calendar full of festivals.