County note shelf
Saint Clair County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Saint Clair County. This shelf has 6 practical notes and 31 local stories.
37 notes
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- Money and taxes Port Huron's City Income Tax and Its Cross-Border Commuters Port Huron levies a local income tax that catches people who work in the city without living there, including some who commute over the Blue Water Bridge.
- Outdoors Algonac throws a party for a fish Every summer the river town of Algonac fills its waterfront for the Lions Pickerel Tournament and Festival, an event built around the walleye the locals have always called pickerel.
- History and culture Catholic Point: the wedge of land a priest bought for $82.33 Where the Belle River meets the St. Clair at Marine City sits Catholic Point, a peninsula Father Gabriel Richard bought in 1824 on a grant signed by President John Quincy Adams.
- Outdoors Columbus County Park: 411 acres of 'up north' an hour from Detroit Tucked into rural Columbus Township, this 411-acre county park gives the Belle River a mile and a half of frontage and laces rolling woods and prairie with trails for bikes, boots, and horses.
- History and culture Emmett, the Irish corner of St. Clair County Famine-era Irish Catholics settled the farmland around Emmett, named their township for the patriot Robert Emmet, and built the parish that became Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
- History and culture How a Michigan farm town ended up named Yale Yale started life as Brockway Centre on Mill Creek; in 1889 the town traded that name for the prestige of an Ivy League college it had no connection to whatsoever.
- History and culture Marysville was Vicksburg until another Vicksburg got in the way The river city of Marysville went through Vickery's Landing and Vicksburg before a naming collision in 1859 left it honoring one woman: Mary, the wife of mill owner Nelson Mills.
- History and culture Port Huron's ice museum, back when winter was the warehouse A downtown Port Huron museum gathered more than 10,000 saws, tongs, picks, and wagons from the lost trade of cutting lake ice in winter and selling it all summer.
- History and culture St. Clair sits on an ocean of salt A thousand feet under St. Clair lies the brine of an ancient sea, and in 1886 a new pressure process turned it into Diamond Crystal — a salt brand that ran here for over a century.
- History and culture Capac's depot, bought for a dollar and dragged away When the Grand Trunk Western depot at Capac was about to be lost, a historical society bought it for one dollar, hauled it down the road in two pieces, and made it a museum.
- Outdoors Lakeport State Park and its Depression-era beach house Lakeport State Park hands you more than a mile of Lake Huron shoreline in the Thumb, with a beach house and campground built by Civilian Conservation Corps crews in the 1930s.
- History and culture Memphis, the little city split between two counties Memphis sits squarely on the Macomb–St. Clair county line above the Belle River, named by settlers who saw their bluff over the water as a Michigan echo of Memphis on the Nile.
- History and culture The Huron, the last lightship on the Great Lakes Moored at Port Huron's Pine Grove Park, Lightship No. 103 — the Huron — was the last floating lighthouse on the Great Lakes and is a National Historic Landmark.
- History and culture The St. Clair Inn, a 1926 Tudor on the river Built in 1926 to give the powerboat capital of Michigan a hotel worthy of it, the half-timbered St. Clair Inn sat empty for years before a $40-million revival reopened it in 2019.
- Outdoors Algonac State Park's lakeplain prairie Algonac State Park guards a stand of lakeplain prairie and oak savanna, two of the rarest habitats left in Michigan, on flat ground beside the St. Clair River.
- Outdoors The Mill Creek trestle on the Wadhams to Avoca Trail West of Port Huron, a rail-trail crosses the Mill Creek valley on a 640-foot wooden trestle that once carried Pere Marquette trains sixty feet above the water.
- History and culture The rescued village at Goodells County Park A log cabin, a one-room school, a country church and a farmhouse — all built in the 1800s and hauled to one spot at Goodells County Park to keep them from the wrecking ball.
- History and culture The tunnel under the river at Port Huron Dug beneath the St. Clair River in 1891, the railroad bore between Port Huron and Sarnia was the first full-size tunnel ever driven under a river in North America.
- History and culture Algonac, the birthplace of Chris-Craft Algonac is the birthplace of Chris-Craft and a cradle of American powerboating, with Christopher Columbus Smith and Gar Wood both tied to the river town.
- History and culture Fort Gratiot, Michigan's oldest lighthouse Port Huron's Fort Gratiot Light is Michigan's oldest lighthouse, still marking the mouth of the St. Clair River.
- Outdoors Harsens Island and the St. Clair Flats Harsens Island in Clay Township sits in the St. Clair Flats, a remarkable freshwater delta of marshes, canals, wildlife, and freighter views.
- History and culture Marine City, the town that built ships Marine City was one of the great nineteenth-century wooden shipbuilding towns of the Great Lakes.
- History and culture Marysville and the Wills Sainte Claire Marysville was shaped by C. Harold Wills and the rare Wills Sainte Claire automobile.
- Outdoors St. Clair's riverfront St. Clair's riverfront offers Palmer Park's boardwalk, close-up freighter watching, and the restored St. Clair Inn.
- Cars and driving The Blue Water Bridge The Blue Water Bridge is Port Huron's landmark international crossing to Canada, with twin spans over the St. Clair River.
- Outdoors The Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race Every July, Port Huron hosts the start of the Bayview Mackinac Race and its Boat Week celebration.
- History and culture Thomas Edison grew up here Thomas Edison spent his boyhood in Port Huron, selling newspapers on the railroad and experimenting in a baggage car.
- History and culture Yale, the Bologna Capital Yale is known as the Bologna Capital, thanks to C. Roy's Yale Bologna and the town's annual festival.
- History and culture Michigan Has More Lighthouses Than Any Other State Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state — roughly 130 — thanks to its 3,200 miles of Great Lakes shoreline.
- Outdoors Harsens Island and the Largest Freshwater Delta in North America The biggest island in the largest freshwater delta in North America — the marshy, ferry-served Venice of Michigan.
- History and culture Manoomin — Wild Rice Michigan's newest symbol is one of its oldest foods: in 2023 it became the first state to name an official native grain — manoomin, the wild rice at the heart of Anishinaabe history.
- Money and taxes City income tax in St. Clair County Port Huron levies a city income tax, while St. Clair County's other St.-Clair-only cities do not.
- Home and property Wells, septic, and what to check before you buy St. Clair County township buyers should check private wells and septic systems themselves because there is no automatic point-of-sale inspection rule.
- History and culture Freighters at the front porch: life on the St. Clair River St. Clair County's east coast is the Great Lakes' busiest parade route — thousand-foot freighters glide past riverfront towns, and the Port Huron-to-Mackinac race starts here.
- 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.