The area was first home to Native Americans known as the Anishinabek, who lived and played on its white sand beaches long before the first European settlers appeared. Legend has it that Abram Wadsworth, a government surveyor, discovered a pair of elk horns in the rapids near the mouth of Elk River in 1847 -- and thus the river's name.

A year later in 1848, he returned to build a log home and construct a sawmill along the banks of the river. The original sawmill and those that followed processed hundreds of thousands of feet of pine and hardwood timber cut from the once vast stands of Antrim County. The lumber was shipped across the state and around the Great Lakes to be used for grand homes in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit.

After the mills efforts were directed toward iron smelting and, later, the production of Portland cement. By the 1940s and 50s Elk Rapids was home to several large cherry packing plants. Later Supertool, an industrial tool cutting company, employed several hundred workers. After a period of economic decline in the 1960s and 70s, the town's fortune rose again with the building of Grace Memorial Harbor and emphasis upon tourist trade. Agriculture, especially fruit, is still important to the area.  Small businesses remain strong, and Elk Rapids boasts the only Chamber of Commerce in Antrim County.

Evidence of the town's colorful past can be found in the archives and displays of the Elk Rapids Area Historical Museum in the basement of Elk Rapids Town Hall.  The stately Island House, the one-time estate of the Noble family, is now the Elk Rapids Area District Library offers history buffs and literature lovers a view of how one the town's most affluent families lived at the turn of the 20th century.