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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- Outdoors At Evart, the Muskegon River turns into smallmouth water The Muskegon River bends right through Evart — once a sorting point for logs floated downstream to the mills, now the top of a long stretch of rocky smallmouth-bass water running south toward Big Rapids.
- History and culture Evart carries one pioneer's name — minus a letter The 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 culture Hersey held the county seat for 58 years, then lost it down the road Hersey was Osceola County's seat of government from 1869 until 1927, when the courts and the changing fortunes of two lumber towns finally moved it eight miles west to Reed City.
- History and culture Hersey: the county's first seat, platted dry by a lumber baron When Delos Blodgett laid out Hersey at the meeting of two rivers in 1867, he wrote a no-liquor clause into every property deed — and the town he founded became Osceola County's first seat of government.
- History and culture LeRoy grew up shipping tan bark and potatoes by the railcar The 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 culture Lincoln Township once had three train stops; one is left When the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad ran through Lincoln Township, it stopped at Ashton, Orono, and Melton Junction. Only Ashton is still a place on the map.
- History and culture Marion was once Clark's Mill, named for the woman who lived there The 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.
- Outdoors Reed City's Westerburg Park: ballfields, a BMX track, and a river to fish Westerburg 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.
- Outdoors Rose Lake: the biggest water in a county short on lakes At 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 culture Sears, Michigan, was a railroad's town — and no relation to the catalog The 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.
- Outdoors The Pine River starts quiet in Osceola, then needs a permit to paddle The 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 culture There's a layer of Michigan rock named after Reed City The 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 culture Tustin began as New Blekinge, a Swedish colony built around a railroad The 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.
- Outdoors Why the state keeps an open prairie in the middle of the north woods The 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 culture Evart's Dulcimer Funfest: the world's biggest hammered dulcimer gathering Every July, Evart hosts the ODPC Funfest, billed as the world's largest hammered dulcimer gathering.
- History and culture Reed City and "The Old Rugged Cross" Reed City's heritage includes Reverend George Bennard, The Old Rugged Cross, logging roots, and the 1889 courthouse.
- Outdoors Reed City: the Crossroads of two rail-trails Reed City is where the White Pine Trail and Pere Marquette State Trail cross downtown.
- Outdoors A four-season outdoor county Osceola County offers state forest land, rivers, rail-trails, hunting, paddling, snowmobiling, and the Evart motorcycle trail.
- Money and taxes No city income tax in Reed City or Evart Neither 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 property Out in the township? Plan on a well and septic — and check them before you buy Osceola County townships are buyer-beware for private wells and septic systems at sale.
- Outdoors Ninety-two miles, no cars: the White Pine Trail towns The 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 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.