Nunica: Clay Earth and Crockery Creek

The little community of Nunica, tucked into Ottawa County near Interstate Ninety-Six, takes its name from a Native American word: menonica, meaning clay earth. That same clay gave Crockery Creek, running just nearby, its own name. White settlers arrived around eighteen thirty-six, the first post office opened in eighteen forty-eight under the name Crockery Creek, and then the name shifted to Nunica in eighteen fifty-nine.

Henry Ernst platted the settlement in eighteen sixty-five. Today it sits quietly at the junction of M One Oh Four and M Two Thirty-One, but its name still carries the memory of the potters and the clay earth that shaped this corner of Michigan long before anyone built a road through it.