In the 21st century, approximately 22 percent of Michiganders claim German ancestry, but the state saw its first mass influx of German immigration with the creation of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the Michigan Land Rush of 1834. As these immigrants fled either political persecution or poverty due to a potato blight and mass industrialization, they found Michigan to be a land of opportunity. Though many settled in rural, ethnic settlements where their culture could thrive, most immigrants settled in Michigan’s urban centers and desired assimilation–a process sped up by anti-German sentiment during WWI. Today, Zehnder’s Restaurant and the Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth are popular centers of German culinary traditions.
