County note shelf
Osceola County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Osceola County. This shelf has 5 practical notes and 18 local stories.
23 notes
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- OutdoorsAround Evart, the Muskegon River is smallmouth waterThe Muskegon River bends through Evart at the upper end of a warmwater reach where Michigan DNR found self-sustaining smallmouth bass and moderate walleye populations.
- History and cultureEvart carries one pioneer's name — minus a letterThe town on the Muskegon River was named for early settler Frank Evart, a Civil War veteran, and the spelling stuck even though most accounts say his family name was really Everts.
- History and cultureHersey held the county seat for 58 years, then Reed City took overHersey was Osceola County's first county seat from 1869 until 1927, when a long dispute ended with county government moving to Reed City.
- History and cultureHersey was Osceola County's first seatOsceola County organized in 1869 with Hersey as its first seat. Early accounts also record Delos Blodgett's effort to bar liquor sales from village lots.
- History and cultureLeRoy grew up shipping tan bark and potatoes by the railcarThe village of LeRoy sprang up along the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad in the early 1870s and made its living loading grain, potatoes, wood, and hemlock tan bark onto northbound trains.
- History and cultureLincoln Township's old rail line: Ashton, Orono, and Milton JunctionLincoln Township's website lists Ashton, Orono, and 'Melton Junction,' but an 1885 railroad handbook records Milton Junction and shows a branch beginning there.
- History and cultureMarion was once Clark's Mill, named for the woman who lived thereThe village of Marion grew up around a dam an Irish millwright threw across the Middle Branch River in 1878 — and took its name from his wife, Marion Clark.
- OutdoorsReed City's Westerburg Park: ballfields, a BMX track, and a river to fishWesterburg Park packs 46 acres of ballfields, a BMX bike park, and Hersey River fishing access into a town the state has officially named a Pure Michigan TrailTown for its tangle of rail-trails.
- OutdoorsRose Lake: the biggest water in a county short on lakesAt 370 acres, Rose Lake near LeRoy is the largest lake in Osceola County — a sand-bottomed walleye and panfish lake with a county park, a campground, and a fishing pier on its north shore.
- History and cultureSears, Michigan, was a railroad's town — and no relation to the catalogThe crossroads of Sears, four miles east of Evart, grew up around a Flint & Pere Marquette depot around 1870; first called Orient, it has no tie to the Sears, Roebuck catalog.
- OutdoorsThe Pine River starts quiet in Osceola, then needs a permit to paddleThe Pine River forms near Tustin in Osceola County and becomes one of Michigan's fastest, most-paddled rivers — so heavily canoed that the Forest Service caps summer launches with a daily watercraft permit.
- History and cultureThere's a layer of Michigan rock named after Reed CityThe biggest single oil strike of 1940s Michigan was the Reed City field, spread across Osceola and Lake counties — productive enough that geologists named a rock layer the Reed City formation.
- History and cultureTustin began as New Blekinge, a Swedish colony built around a railroadThe tiny village of Tustin started in the 1870s as New Blekinge, a Swedish settlement recruited from across the Atlantic by a railroad that wanted track-builders and gave away land to get them.
- OutdoorsWhy the state keeps an open prairie in the middle of the north woodsThe Osceola-Missaukee Grasslands near Marion is mowed and burned to stay open on purpose — one of the few Lower Peninsula spots managed for the sharp-tailed grouse and its spring dance.
- History and cultureEvart's Dulcimer Funfest fills the fairgrounds with acoustic musicEvery July, the ODPC Funfest brings hammered dulcimers and other acoustic instruments to Evart for workshops, concerts, camping, and open jams.
- History and cultureReed City and "The Old Rugged Cross"Reed City's heritage includes Reverend George Bennard, The Old Rugged Cross, logging roots, and the 1889 courthouse.
- OutdoorsReed City: the Crossroads of two rail-trailsReed City is where the White Pine Trail and Pere Marquette State Trail cross downtown.
- OutdoorsA four-season outdoor countyOsceola County offers state forest land, rivers, rail-trails, hunting, paddling, snowmobiling, and the Evart motorcycle trail.
- Money and taxesNo city income tax in Reed City or EvartNeither Reed City nor Evart charges a city income tax, though Reed City commuters working in Big Rapids pay that city's 0.5% nonresident rate.
- Home and propertyOut in the township? Plan on a well and septic — and check them before you buyOsceola County townships are buyer-beware for private wells and septic systems at sale.
- OutdoorsNinety-two miles, no cars: the White Pine Trail townsThe Fred Meijer White Pine Trail runs 92 miles from Grand Rapids' edge to Cadillac, giving a string of small towns a linear state park for a main street.
- Money and taxesBuying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxesMichigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxesIn Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not oneMost Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.