Portage, Michigan, United States

🇺🇸 Portage is a city in Kalamazoo County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the smaller of the two main cities included in the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is known for their Pharmaceutical manufacturing and celery agriculture. On February 19th 2021, the President of the United States Joseph Biden visited Portage to commemorate the production of the Pfizer Vaccine.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 35.17 square miles (91.09 km²), of which 32.23 square miles (83.48 km²) is land and 2.94 square miles (7.61 km²) is water.

Austin Lake is in the south-east part of the city and was named for Moses Austin, who had emigrated to Portage Township from Genesee County, New York, in 1833. A settlement grew on the north shore of the lake, known as Austin or Austin Lake. A post office named "Austin's Lake" was established on May 18, 1850, with Austin as postmaster, and operated until August 15, 1853. The place was also a station on the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad in 1867. West Lake is adjacent to Austin Lake with Portage Road running between the two lakes.

Education Most of Portage is in the Portage Public Schools school district. Some of Portage is in Comstock Public Schools, some is in Vicksburg Community Schools, and some is in Schoolcraft Community Schools.

Health care Portage is the site of Pfizer's largest manufacturing facility, at 1,300 acres. The U.S. government prepped millions of doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine on December 13, 2020, for shipment to sites across the nation, a mammoth logistical undertaking in support of the most complex immunization program in history.