Houghton Lake was named after Michigan's first state geologist, Douglas Houghton. Houghton's explorations in the early 1850s led him to the Houghton Lake area. In 1873, S.C. Hall, a mill owner, settled the area and a lumbering community soon developed. Houghton Lake is now part of a large outdoor oriented community with great fishing, trails, and scenery. Every January the now popular tourist community becomes the carnival on ice known as Tip-Up-Town.