According to Michigan's constitution, each county's seat is determined by the registered voters of the county. When Leelanau County was created by the Michigan Legislature in 1863, a majority of the voters chose Northport to be the new county's seat. Since that time, the county seat has been relocated only twice, but there have been other proposals to change the county seat as well. One of these proposals was actually approved, but not officially carried out.

In 1883, the county seat was moved to Leland after a vote of the county's residents. After this, there were two more moves suggested, one of them that could be said to be a prelude to the recent move from Leland.

In 1920, a proposal was put on the county ballot to move the county seat to Suttons Bay. In the general election that year, the proposal was approved by the voters. However, for reasons not known, the move was never officially made and the county government remained at Leland.

Another proposed move of the county seat had its beginnings in 1956 when a ballot proposal for a new county jail was approved by the voters. Discussion started to determine where to build the new jail, some wanting it in Leland, and others believing another location would be better suited. The latter choice would have involved possibly another change in the county seat. The debate on the county seat issue began at a meeting of the County Supervisors in early 1958 when a resolution to move the county seat was introduced, and then was tabled. After the story was reported in the Leelanau Enterprise, people began to promote various communities for the new location, and the Suttons Bay Courier published a special section in its paper promoting the advantages of Suttons Bay. People living in Greilickville nominated their community, and Cedar was nominated by its local Chamber of Commerce because it was near the center of the county. After about a month and a half the matter was suddenly dropped, and the new county jail was built in Leland in 1959.

In the opening years of the twenty-first century, another proposal to build still another county jail was presented, and a new proposal to move the county seat to Suttons Bay was passed by the County Commissioners in 2004 and was approved by voters later that year. The new county jail has been completed just west of the village, but the official move from Leland to Suttons Bay has not yet taken place as of this writing.

-- Thomas Baird