Antiques and old houses on the Chicago Road

The old Chicago Road — the historic Sauk Trail that’s now US-12 — runs straight across the top of Hillsdale County, and a couple of stops along it are worth a detour. The village of Allen, tiny as it is, calls itself the “Antique Capital of Michigan,” and it earns the title: a short stretch of US-12 is packed with antique malls and shops. The local joke is that if you spent just one minute at every booth in town, you’d still need more than two days to see them all. (The same route hosts Michigan’s Longest Garage Sale each summer.)

A few miles east, Jonesville is one of the older towns in the county and shows it, with a main street of 19th-century buildings. Its centerpiece is the Grosvenor House, an 1874 Italianate mansion — designed by the same architect as the Michigan State Capitol — that’s now a house museum. Jonesville is also home to the Munro House, a stately old home that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Allen’s antique malls line US-12 through the village; the Grosvenor House Museum is at 211 Maumee Street in Jonesville.