Sturgis, the Electric City, and its own dam

On September 3, 1911, the gates closed on a new dam north of Centreville and the river started spinning generators that belonged to the people of Sturgis. The town has called itself the Electric City ever since, and unlike most nicknames, this one is on the meter.

Sturgis went into the power business early — its municipal electric department dates to 1896, only a few years after the town became a city. Then in 1909 voters did something bolder: they approved a bond to build their own hydroelectric dam, the kind that makes electricity by letting the weight of moving water turn a wheel. They put it on the St. Joseph River a couple of miles above Centreville. When it came online in 1911 it’s often credited as the first city-owned water-power plant in Michigan — a small town generating its own current while bigger cities were still buying theirs.

The dam is still turning. It only covers a sliver of what the city uses now; most of the power comes from elsewhere these days. But it backs up a long, broad reach of the St. Joseph behind it, a quiet ribbon of open water that wouldn’t exist if a few hundred voters hadn’t gambled on a bond in 1909.

The practical legacy is that your power company in Sturgis isn’t a distant corporation — it’s an office in town, the same setup the city chose for itself before most of its neighbors had streetlights.