To be clear, at the intersection of lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. There are a few small towns along the way with pops around 50k, but there's no city like Detroit, or Chicago, or Buffalo like there are in all of the other major checkpoints in the Mississippi-Great lakes-erie canal trade system of the 1800s. Why didn't anybody settle there?
As a Michigander, I'm a bit confused by the idea of
the intersection of lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron.
Lake Superior does not intersect with Lake Huron-Michigan--or at least it didn't until relatively recently The lakes are connected by the St. Mary's River, which was difficult to traverse until the Soo Locks were built to circumvent the St. Mary's Rapids in the mid-1800s.
As for why nobody settled in Northern Michigan I can only speculate, which is not allowed on this sub.
Large cities don't arise at the junctions of water bodies or rivers. There's no reason for them there, because water traffic can simply continue right past. Cities more commonly arise where freight must be transferred from one mode of transport to another because of a portage, falls or rapids, or because it's the most inland possible location. Geographers refer to this kind of settlement as an entrepôt. Because cargo is already being moved around, it's an efficient place to set up factories and mills that add value to raw materials, or warehouses to store goods for trade.