A Historical City on the Bay
Shop, dine, and unwind where downtown meets the water nineteenth-century charm on the shores of Anchor Bay, twenty minutes from anywhere in Macomb County.
35 Minutes from Detroit
Free Parking Downtown
Walk Everywhere on Main Street
Right on Anchor Bay, Lake St. Clair
Explore Downtown
Shopping & Dining, Waterfront Recreation, the Social District and so much more...
Something's Always Happening Downtown
From summer fireworks over the bay to a snowy Winterfest downtown, there's a reason to visit New Baltimore in every season.
History of New Baltimore, Michigan
Long before New Baltimore earned its nickname, this stretch of Anchor Bay was already a gathering place for hunters, traders, shipbuilders, and generations of families drawn to the water. Walk our downtown today and you're walking through nearly two centuries of that story.
French fur trappers were among the first to settle here in 1796, drawn to the bay for its access to trade routes along Lake St. Clair. They built the narrow-frontage farms stretching back from the shoreline that shaped this stretch of coast a layout you can still trace in the pattern of streets running toward the water today. In 1845, Mt. Clemens businessman Alfred Ashley platted 60 acres along the bay, and the settlement took its first name: the Village of Ashley.
The village grew quickly around its waterfront, and in 1867 it was renamed New Baltimore and formally incorporated. For the next several decades, the town's economy ran on the water: shipping piers stretched a hundred feet or more into the lake, and local industries turned out barrels, bricks, lumber, and even coffins and corsets bound for markets up and down the coast. New Baltimore officially became a city in 1931 by then a well-established hub for Macomb County.
Between 1860 and 1880, New Baltimore reinvented itself as one of the region's favorite escapes. An opera house, hotels, and salt baths sprang up along the bay, drawing visitors from Detroit and beyond who came for fresh lake air and waterfront leisure the same reasons people fall for this stretch of Anchor Bay today. A steam rail line linking Detroit and Port Huron, and later an electric generating plant, kept the town connected and growing into the new century.
Interstate 94 now puts downtown New Baltimore about 35 minutes from Detroit, but the pull is the same one that brought visitors here more than 150 years ago: the water. Our historic downtown blends nineteenth-century character with a modern lineup of shops, restaurants, and waterfront events proof that "A Historical City on the Bay" isn't just a slogan. It's still exactly who we are.