County note shelf
Shiawassee County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Shiawassee County. This shelf has 5 practical notes and 25 local stories.
30 notes
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- History and cultureBancroft took its name from a mining companyThe Shiawassee County village was platted when the railroad arrived in 1877, then took the unexpected name of the Bancroft Mining Company.
- History and cultureByron grew up around a dam, and took its name from a poetThe village of Byron began in the 1830s when a company dammed the Shiawassee River for a sawmill, and it carries the name of the English Romantic poet Lord Byron.
- History and cultureHow a 600-person village in New Lothrop became a football giantNew Lothrop, a Hazelton Township village of about 600, has won three Michigan high school football state titles — 2006, 2018, and 2020 — against schools many times its size.
- History and cultureIn Ovid you can change counties without leaving Main StreetThe city of Ovid straddles the Clinton–Shiawassee county line — most of town sits in Clinton, while its eastern edge crosses into Middlebury Township in Shiawassee.
- History and cultureOwosso's casket works reached 150 a dayWoodard's history dates production of 150 caskets a day to the 1918-19 flu pandemic. A City of Owosso study calls the company the world's largest casket maker throughout the 1920s.
- History and cultureThe circus train wreck that left a monument in a Durand cemeteryOn August 6, 1903, two Great Wallace Shows circus trains collided in the Durand rail yard when the brakes failed, killing about two dozen people and an elephant named Maud.
- History and cultureThe man who built Morrice wanted to name it after himselfA railroad vice-president tried to name the new Shiawassee village Galesboro after himself; Michigan said no, so he named it Morrice for a Scottish farmer friend instead.
- History and cultureThe Shiawassee County Fair traces back to 1850 — and a profit of $81Shiawassee County's agricultural fair goes back to an 1850 society in Corunna; it ran 53 years at McCurdy Park before moving to its current Hibbard Road grounds in 1988.
- OutdoorsThey took out the Shiatown Dam, and the Shiawassee runs free againA dam stood on the Shiawassee River at Shiatown from 1840 until a removal finished in 2019; the river now runs free past a county park, open to paddlers and anglers.
- History and cultureLaingsburg briefly went by 'Nebraska'The community founded around Dr. Peter Laing's roadside stop was officially called Nebraska from 1854 until it changed back to Laingsburg in 1862.
- History and cultureOwosso chose brick again for Michigan AvenueMichigan Avenue's bricks are newer than they look: the street was repaved with new brick in 2004 to preserve the look of the older street.
- History and cultureOwosso means 'one bright spot'The city's name traces to Chief Wasso, an Ojibwe leader whose own name — by the legend on a marker downtown — meant the one remaining joy in a grieving father's life.
- History and cultureThe race track near Ovid that spent the war as a POW campOwosso Speedway opened in 1939, went dark in 1944 to hold German prisoners of war, and came back roaring after V-E Day — and it's still racing today.
- History and cultureVernon's map still follows road, river, and railM-71, the Shiawassee River, and two railroad rights-of-way still shape this small Shiawassee County village.
- History and cultureDurand throws a festival for the railroad every MayA festival that began in 1975 with a single salvaged baggage car celebrates the town that grew up around one of Michigan's busiest railroad crossings.
- History and cultureShiawassee County took its name from the riverCounty sources preserve several translations for Shiawassee, including 'rolling or sparkling water' and 'the water that lies straight ahead.'
- History and cultureThe 1800s village hiding inside Corunna's McCurdy ParkRestored period buildings gathered along the Shiawassee River in Hugh McCurdy Park recreate small-town life before electricity, on land that once hosted the county fair.
- History and cultureThe town of Perry packed up and walked to the railroadWhen tracks laid in the 1870s ran past the original settlement, Perry shifted its whole center to meet them — and stayed on the map while neighbors that missed the line faded.
- OutdoorsWhy a state park near Laingsburg is named Sleepy HollowA naming feud between rival towns near Laingsburg ended when a former landowner's surname — Crane — handed the new state park a literary name.
- History and cultureA Claire Allen courthouse on the squareCorunna's Shiawassee County Courthouse is a Claire Allen-designed Classical Revival landmark on the public square.
- History and cultureAn author's castle and a presidential candidate's hometownOwosso is the hometown of adventure novelist James Oliver Curwood and presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey.
- History and cultureThe "Queen of the Rails"Durand Union Station is a landmark railroad depot and the home of the Michigan Railroad History Museum.
- History and cultureThe real Polar Express lives hereOwosso's Pere Marquette 1225 steam locomotive inspired The Polar Express and still pulls excursion trains.
- History and cultureJames Oliver Curwood built a writing castle on the Shiawassee RiverOwosso-born adventure novelist James Oliver Curwood built a French-chateau-style writing studio beside the Shiawassee River in 1922 and 1923.
- Home and propertyAssembly Solar spans two Shiawassee County townshipsAssembly Solar is a 239-megawatt project in Hazelton and Venice townships, with state records that put its land, lease, tax, and siting context in clearer terms.
- Home and propertyNo city income tax in Shiawassee CountyNo Shiawassee County city taxes wages, but Flint, Lansing, and East Lansing all do — commuting out means paying that city's 0.5% nonresident rate.
- Home and propertyOut in the township, you're on a well and septic — and the county checks it when you sellShiawassee County township homes often use private wells and septic systems, and the county requires septic inspection at sale or transfer.
- History and cultureOwosso's castle and the Polar Express: Shiawassee's storybook sideShiawassee County's seat keeps a riverside writer's castle and the famous steam locomotive Pere Marquette 1225 — the engine behind the Polar Express.
- 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.