The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, a Native Sovereign Nation is based in Manistee, LRBOI is the political successor to nine of the nineteen historic bands of the Grand River Ottawa people. The permanent villages of the Grand River Bands from which the Little River Ottawa descend were originally located on the Thornapple River, Grand River, White River, Pere Marquette River and the Big and Little Manistee Rivers. Those southern bands shared hunting and trapping territory along the Pere Marquette and Manistee River systems and had close kinship ties to the northern Grand River Bands at Pere Marquette The Little River Band Ottawa moved to the western shore of Michigan, ranging from the Manistee River in the north to the Grand River in the south. In these village sites, approximately nineteen in all, the Tribe lived for many years.
The tribes’ 1836 Reservation was located on the Manistee River, in large part, to provide the Bands with a permanent home which gave them access to important hunting and trapping territories on the Manistee River system. Following the 1855 treaty, the nine Bands from whom the Little River Ottawa descend, established a major settlement known as “Indian Town” on the Pere Marquette, near present day Custer in Mason County, Eden Township.