Cement City was named before the cement plant even opened

A town does not usually name itself after a factory that has not been built yet, but that is exactly what happened at the corner of Lenawee and Jackson counties. The little settlement had already gone by Kelly’s Corners and then Woodstock when, in 1901, the post office changed the name to Cement City. The new name pointed at something still under construction: a Portland cement plant rising just to the west.

The plant had a clever reason to be there. Cement needs marl — a gray, limey mud — and the lakes nearby were full of it. The Peninsular Portland Cement Company dredged marl out of Goose Lake, mixed it with clay shipped up from Ohio, baked it, and barreled the finished cement straight onto the railroad that ran past the door. In its early days the works could turn out hundreds of barrels a day, and the jobs pulled families to the crossroads fast enough to justify the bold new name.

The cement business held on for more than sixty years before the plant shut down in 1961. After that the great kilns and silos sat empty, and most were eventually cleared off. The lakes that fed the industry are still there, quieter now, ringed with cottages instead of dredge lines.

What is left is mostly the name. Drive through and the sign says Cement City — a permanent tribute to a factory that has been gone longer than it ever ran.