Historic Marshall

Marshall is one of the best-preserved 19th-century towns in America. Its downtown and surrounding neighborhoods make up one of the largest National Historic Landmark districts in the country — more than 800 historic homes and buildings — and the National Park Service has called it “the best virtual textbook of 19th-century American architecture in the country.”

There’s a reason it’s so grand for its size: Marshall fully expected to become Michigan’s state capital. It came tantalizingly close — in the 1847 contest to pick a permanent capital, it finished within a single vote of the lead before lawmakers settled on Lansing — but not before building for the part. You can still visit “Capitol Hill” and the columned Governor’s Mansion put up in anticipation of a governor who never came. The town’s showpiece is the Honolulu House, an unforgettable 1860 mashup of Italianate, Gothic, and Hawaiian styles built by a local judge who’d served as U.S. consul in Hawaii.

Marshall also punches above its weight for museums, including the American Museum of Magic — the largest collection of magic artifacts open to the public anywhere, sometimes called “the Smithsonian of American magic.”