The Whittemores named the community they founded as Tawas City. Eight years later, the lumbering firm of Smith, Van Valkenburg and Company built a mill on the bay shore a mile or so east of the Whittemore mill and holding. When a community developed around this latter mill, the cluster of homes was, by common consent, named East Tawas. For many years, residents of both towns and the surrounding farming community often referred to Tawas City as “old town” and to East Tawas as “east town.”