LUDINGTON  , a

city and the county-seat of Mason county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Marquette river, about 85 m . N.W. of Grand Rapids . Pop . (1900) 7166 (2259 foreign-born); (1904, state census) 7259; (1910) 9132 . It is served by the Pere Marquette, and the Ludington and Northern railways, and by steamboat lines to Chicago, Milwaukee and other lake ports . To Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Kewanee and Two Rivers, Wisconsin, on the W. shore of Lake Michigan, cars, especially those of the Pere Marquette railway, are ferried from here . Ludington was formerly well known as a lumber centre, but this industry has greatly declined . There are various manufactures, and the city has a large ,grain trade . On the site of the city Pere Marquette died and was buried, but his body was removed within a year to Point St Ignace . Ludington was settled about 1859, and was chartered as a city in 1873 . It was originally named Pere Marquette, but was renamed in 1871 in honour of James Ludington, a local lumberman .