St. Johns, the Mint Capital of the World

Crush a peppermint leaf and you’re smelling Clinton County’s claim to fame. The muck soils around St. Johns proved perfect for mint a century ago, and the county still ranks first in Michigan in mint production — enough that St. Johns wears the title “Mint Capital of the World” on its water tower without blushing. The crop’s oil once flavored half of America’s gum and toothpaste, and local fields and a historic mint still keep the tradition alive.

The county seat celebrates accordingly: the St. Johns Mint Festival, held the second weekend of each August since the mid-1980s, brings a parade, mint-everything food, and tens of thousands of visitors to a courthouse town that’s an easy commute from Lansing. Around it spreads some of Michigan’s best farmland and a string of bedroom communities — DeWitt, Bath, Ovid-Elsie country — that quietly rank among the region’s most livable. Sweet air, flat horizons, fifteen minutes from the capital: Clinton County is mid-Michigan with a peppermint twist.