Houghton is in
Houghton County (of which it is the county seat), and in the
Northern Region. You can locate Houghton just south of
Hancock along Highway 26 near Portage Lake and
Lake Superior.
The city of Houghton was named after its county, which was named in honor of a pioneer state geologist Douglass Houghton. Houghton's first settler was Ransom Sheldon, who bought land near Portage Lake and later opened a small store there.
Houghton was platted by Ernest F. Pletschke in 1854 and later incorporated into a village in 1867.
Today, Houghton is home of the Michigan Technological University campus.
