Skidway Lake, Michigan
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Mills Township. It lies in ZIP code area 48756. It stands on Mills Creek. The Survey maps it on the Skidway Lake quadrangle. 3,082 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 797 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSkidway Lake fell from 3,392 to 3,082 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 3,392 | |
| 2020 | 3,082 | -310 (-9%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 9 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1954 USGS Traverse City quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1958 USGS Traverse City quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1968 USGS Skidway Lake quadrangle1:24000
- 1983 USGS Houghton Lake quadrangle1:100000
- 1989 USGS Traverse City quadrangle1:250000
Fires near this place
61 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 61 fires within 5 miles of Skidway Lake between 1992 and 2020, burning about 341 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 24 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 12 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 5 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 4 |
| Natural | 3 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 2 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 2 |
| Other causes | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 September 2003 | Debris and open burning | 1.5 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 10 August 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | 2.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 July 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 3 July 2005 | Arson/incendiarism | 49 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 29 July 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | RICHLAND-LOGAN FD 0000024 - 2019 |
| 24 July 1993 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 19 July 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 3.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 18 July 2005 | Arson/incendiarism | 4.6 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
7 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Skidway Lake in 7 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | $12,000 | Sporadic large trees and power lines were downed in a large area from Skidway Lake to Prescott. |
| July 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | $9,000 | A single, large tree was downed, taking down a power line and landing on a parked vehicle. |
| July 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | $5,000 | Large tree limbs were broken off of trees. Several power poles were knocked over. |
| August 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | - | Damaging thunderstorm wind gusts downed powerlines. Heavy rain accompanied thunderstorms as well, leading to localized ponding. |
| August 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | - | Scattered trees down. |
| April 1993 | Hail | Skidway Lake | - | Tomato-size hail fell on Cranberry Road, about 0.5 mile south of Greenwood Road. |
| June 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Skidway Lake | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elbow Lake | 2.2 miles | 9 | |
| Prescott | 5.6 miles | 10 | |
| Greenwood | 6.5 miles | 9 | |
| Selkirk | 9.1 miles | 10 | |
| Campbells Corners | 10.7 miles | 11 | |
| Camp Lu Lay Lea | 10.7 miles | 10 | |
| Edwards | 12.3 miles | 9 | |
| West Branch | 12.5 miles | 11 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Skidway Lake | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2147381 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 638056. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.




