A longtime prison town

Ionia has been a prison town for a very long time — the first state prison opened here in 1877. Today Ionia County is home to several Michigan Department of Corrections facilities clustered just west of the city, including the Ionia Correctional Facility (one of the state’s maximum-security prisons), Bellamy Creek, and the Richard A. Handlon facility. Together they’re one of the area’s biggest employers, and a lot of local families have someone who works in corrections.

One practical thing to know: the prison population is counted in the census, so the official “population” of the city of Ionia is larger than the number of people actually living in its neighborhoods. It’s worth keeping in mind when you look at population or density figures for the area.