County note shelf
Lapeer County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Lapeer County. This shelf has 8 practical notes and 23 local stories.
31 notes
Read the county shelf
- Outdoors A 1927 golf course on the shore of Lake Nepessing Lapeer Country Club has played golf on the same ground since 1927, its fairways laid out over 150 acres of greens and pines overlooking Lake Nepessing just west of town.
- History and culture Attica was Mill Station, then Elk Lake, before it settled on a name The post office at Attica changed its name twice before it stuck — opening as Mill Station in 1867, becoming Elk Lake in 1870, and finally taking the township's name, Attica, in 1871.
- History and culture Goodland Township: the fires took the trees, so the plows came Goodland Township started as a lumber community, but the great Michigan fires of 1871 and 1881 burned through the pine — and what grew back, on the cleared ground, was farms.
- History and culture Imlay is named for a Connecticut man who reportedly never set foot here William H. Imlay, a Connecticut businessman, bought up forest land in the 1830s; the township organized in 1850 took his name, and the railroad village platted in 1870 became Imlay City — though Imlay himself is said never to have visited.
- Outdoors Lake Minnawanna and the 700 acres around it Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area wraps 723 acres of woods and trails around 80-acre Lake Minnawanna in Hadley Township — a state park with a campground, swim beach, and fishing pier.
- History and culture Lapeer Days: a free street party that's outlasted a century Every August, downtown Lapeer closes to traffic for Lapeer Days — a three-day festival that's run for more than 120 years and bills itself as Michigan's largest free festival.
- Money and taxes Lapeer is one of the few Michigan cities with its own income tax The City of Lapeer levies a local income tax — 1% on residents and 0.5% on nonresidents who work in the city — making it one of only about two dozen Michigan cities to charge one, and the only one in its county.
- History and culture North Branch is named for a branch of the Flint River The village and township of North Branch take their name from the north branch of the Flint River, the main stream running through town, where settlers led by the Beach family put down roots in 1854.
- History and culture Otter Lake got its name from one bad day for the otters On September 29, 1838, a hunter named Andrew McArthur spotted five otters swimming in a Lapeer County lake, shot one, and the name stuck — to the lake and later the village built beside it.
- History and culture The Vlasic pickle empire was born on Blacks Corners Road Vlasic's first dedicated plant opened in Imlay City in 1957, when Joseph Vlasic bought a small pickle works on Blacks Corners Road — the site that grew into one of America's best-known pickle brands.
- History and culture Almont was Newburg first — and is named for a Mexican general Settled in 1833 as Newburg, this southeast Lapeer County village renamed itself Almont on January 5, 1846 — for Mexican general and diplomat Juan V. Almonte — and calls itself Michigan's sixth-oldest village.
- History and culture Columbiaville was Niverville first — and a lumber baron made trains stop here Born as the sawmill hamlet of Niverville in 1848, renamed for a New York county in 1857, and shaped by lumber merchant William Peter — who built the 1893 brick depot with a deed clause forcing every passenger train to stop.
- History and culture Hadley's old mill, the reason there's a town here at all A wooden flour-and-feed mill from the 1870s — the third built on the same Hadley millpond — survives from the era when a dammed stream decided where a Michigan village took root.
- History and culture The 1881 fire that started here and became the Red Cross's first job The Great Thumb Fire of 1881 ignited in northern Lapeer County, burned a million acres across four counties, killed roughly 280 people, and became the American Red Cross's first disaster relief operation.
- History and culture The general who invented Muzak gave Dryden a free park General Squier Memorial Park in Dryden was a 'country club for country people' opened by George Owen Squier — the Signal Corps major general who patented the wired music service he named Muzak.
- Outdoors The Lapeer State Game Area: thousands of public acres on the Flint River bottomland Several thousand acres of state land assembled in the 1940s along the Flint River — working habitat open to hunters, hikers, and birders, with a staffed public shooting range off Roods Lake Road.
- History and culture The Lapeer State Home: a thousand-acre town that vanished inside the city From 1895 to 1991, Lapeer held a state institution for people with disabilities — the Lapeer State Home, later Oakdale — that grew to thousands of residents, a hundred-plus buildings, and the county's largest payroll.
- History and culture The Pix: Lapeer's 1941 movie house, dark for a year and lit ever since An art deco single-screen theater that opened on Nepessing Street in 1941, went dark in 1996, and was bought by the city and reborn in 1997 as a live-performance stage running about fifty shows a season.
- Outdoors The Polly Ann Trail: a railroad that locals couldn't stop nicknaming A 20-mile non-motorized state trail on the old Pontiac, Oxford & Northern railbed, running through Dryden and Imlay City — to a trailhead on a street named P.O. & N.
- History and culture Why it's called Lapeer: French traders, the river, and 'the stone' Lapeer is 'la pierre' — French for 'the stone' — worn down into one word for the flinty rock at the river crossing, the same gray stone that named Flint downstream.
- History and culture A railroad town and the Eastern Michigan State Fair Imlay City grew from a railroad depot and still hosts the Eastern Michigan State Fair.
- History and culture Horse country and the hunt Metamora's village and township are known for horse farms, the Metamora Hunt, and quiet rural estates.
- History and culture Michigan's oldest working courthouse Lapeer's 1845-46 courthouse is the oldest courthouse still in use in Michigan.
- Money and taxes No city income tax in Imlay City Imlay City has no city income tax; Lapeer, the county's one taxing city, takes 0.5% from Imlay City residents who commute there for work.
- Home and property Buying on one of the county's lakes Lapeer County lakefront buyers should ask about legal lake levels, assessments, dock rules, associations, and septic systems.
- Money and taxes This city has a local income tax Some Michigan cities charge the standard local income tax: 1% for residents and 0.5% for nonresidents who work in the city.
- Home and property Out in the township, you're on a well and septic Most Lapeer County township homes outside the cities and villages use private wells and septic systems.
- History and culture Lapeer: Michigan's oldest working courthouse, and horse country out the back door Lapeer County pairs the 1846 Greek Revival courthouse — Michigan's oldest still in use — with the rolling hunt-country hills around Metamora.
- Money and taxes Live in a Michigan village? You pay an extra layer of property tax Michigan village residents usually pay village property taxes on top of township taxes, so the village boundary can change a buyer's total rate.
- Money and taxes Buying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxes Michigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxes In Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not one Most Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.