Additional submissions are always welcome.
Online Books and Articles |
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| The Journey of Ionia's First Settlers | Article from 1893 by Mrs. Prudence Tower, daughter of Samuel Dexter |
| The First Settlement of Ionia | Article by Palmer H. Taylor from 1890 |
| City of Ionia History | Article from 1878 |
| The Settlement of Ionia, Mich. by Samuel Dexter | |
| History and directory of Ionia County | 1872 |
| History of Ionia and Montcalm counties | 1881 |
| Portrait and biographical album of Ionia and Montcalm counties | 1891 Index Available |
| History of Ionia County | 1916 |
| Memorials of the Grand River Valley | 1878 |
| Portland City Centennial Book | 1869-1969 |
| Early Christmas Celebrations in Ionia | |
| Helen Adeline Kelly-Green | Biography of the wife of Governor Fred W. Green |
General Information |
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| Early History and Time Line | |
| Early Ionia Businesses | |
| Ionia County Communities | |
| Ionia County Prisons | |
| Ionia County Historic Homes | |
Historical Markers |
From Michigan History Center |
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Alvah Belding Library 302 East Main Street, Belding |
Alvah N. Belding erected this library in 1917-18 as a memorial to his parents, Hiram and Mary Wilson Belding. Alvah and his brother Hiram began peddling silk around Belding (then Patterson's Mills) in 1858. With the help of their brother Milo they began the internationally known Belding Brothers and Company in 1863. Michigan's first silk mill was erected here in 1886 and operated until 1932. This library, which cost fifty thousand dollars, was dedicated and presented to the city of Belding on May 14, 1918. It is the only structure built by the Beldings still being used for its original purpose. An example of Classical Revival architecture, the limestone structure features a Spanish-tile roof. Its interior contains trim of marble, oak, and pine. |
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Belding City Hall 120 S. Pleasant Street, Belding |
On April 1, 1912, the citizens of Belding voted to issue a $15,000
bond to build a new city hall. At the time, the city jail was housed
in an old barn and the dilapidated building rented by the city as a
firehouse was called a "burning shame". Belding was then a growing
city made prosperous by the silk industry. Dedicated on Decoration
Day (now known as Memorial Day) 1913, the new City Hall consolidated
local services into a modern building. This Classical Revival brick
and sandstone building was designed by the Grand Rapids based
architectural firm Osgood and Osgood. City Hall has housed numerous
social and civic functions, including local Civil War veterans
organized in Dan S. Root Post 126 of the Grand Army of the Republic. Rebuilt after a devastating 1893 fire, Belding's downtown featured brick paved streets lined by service, retail and entertainment store-fronts. Between 1970 and 1972 most of the downtown and all but one block of Main Street, around sixty buildings, were razed to provide space for parking and a modern shopping plaza. Belding City Hall was one of the few historic downtown buildings to survive this urban renewal effort. The early 1970s also saw City Hall's interior remodeled, and in 1973 the fire department annex was added to the east side of the building. City Hall, with its fine interior details, including white oak trim and pressed-tin wall and ceiling panels, remains Belding's most visible testament to the community's past. |
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Belrockton Dormitory 108 Hanover Street, Belding |
Built in 1906, the Belrockton is the last remaining boardinghouse of the three provided by the Belding Brothers and Company for its single female workers. A major silk manufacturer during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the company employed hundreds of young women and earned Belding the title of "Silk City of the World". Providing accomodations for one hundred residents and staff, the Belrockton Dormitory, a Classical Revival-inspired building, was erected at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. Following the closing of the company's silk mills in 1935, the "Bel" served as a residential training center for the National Youth Administration. In 1943 the building became a recreation center. The city of Belding purchased the structure in 1950 to serve as a community center. In 1987 it became the home of the Belding Museum. |
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Blanchard House 253 East Main Street, Ionia |
The brick walls of this substantial Italianate house are veneered with variegated sandstone selected by John Blanchard from the Ionia Sandstone Quarry, which he co-owned. The house stands where the Blanchards' first Ionia home was located. In 1880 they moved that house to the back of the lot and began constructing this elegant residence, completed in 1881. The house looks much as it did when the Blanchards lived here and retains many original interior features, such as brass chandeliers, faux marble fireplaces and walnut shutters. In 1974 the Ionia County Historical Society purchased the house. The Blanchard House is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. |
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Church of Christ 138 Garden Street, Muir |
In 1856 the Reverend Isaac Errett organized Disciples of Christ congregations in Montrose (present-day Muir) and Lyons. Membership grew quickly, and in 1861 this church was built to serve Muir. The board-and-batten Gothic Revival exterior masks a simple meetinghouse interior. In 1881 Errett was the principal speaker at the funeral of his friend President James A. Garfield, who visited Muir in 1862. The Muir Church of Christ is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. |
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City of Portland Kent Street, Portland |
In 1833, Elisha Newman filed a federal land grant for extensive land around the Looking Glass and Grand Rivers that would later become the village of Portland. Early Ionia County histories state that Philo Bogue built a trading post on the Grand River later that year, selling New York goods to local travelers. Settlers began arriving in larger numbers in 1836, and in 1837 a post office opened in the new town under the name "Portland". The village incorporated in 1869. The railroad added a stop at Portland that same year, spurring industrial growth. Mills, furniture factories, metal foundries and a washing machine manufacturer were among the successful businesses. Cultural centers such as an 1880 Opera House and the 1905 Carnegie Library enriched village life. Continuing to grow, Portland incorporated as a city in November 1969. |
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First Roadside Table Grand River Avenue east of Morrison Lake Rd., Saranac |
Here on old US-16 in Boston Township, Ionia County, the first picnic table along a highway right-of-way was placed in 1929 through the initiative of Allan Williams, county engineer. The table was built of salvage planks formerly used for guardrails. The idea immediately caught on and was adopted by the State Highway Department. The Ionia County Road Commission made the state's tables until the work became too great. The roadside table became an emblem of Michigan's hospitality, one which has been widely emulated by states the nation over. |
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Fred W. Green 320 Union Street, Ionia |
Governor of Michigan, 1927-1931, Fred W. Green was born in Manistee in 1872 and grew up in Cadillac. A partner in the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Company, he moved the business to Ionia in 1904. Attracted to politics, he served twelve terms as mayor of Ionia and ten years as treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee. While mayor, he had this handsome Mission-style house built, completing it in 1924. An avid sportsman, his administration was characterized by an expanding fish planting program and acquisition of seven state parks. In 1931 he returned to private life and to his favorite pastimes, hunting and fishing. He died in 1936 near Munising. |
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Frederick Hall House 126 East Main Street, Ionia |
Captain Lucius Mills, a local builder, constructed this house for Frederick and Ann Hall in 1869-70. Built of variegated Ionia sandstone, the house is an outstanding example of the Italian Villa style. Frederick Hall came to Ionia County in 1837 when President James K. Polk appointed him deputy land register at the U.S. Land Office in Lyons. He held numerous public offices, including state representative and congressman, and became Ionia's first mayor in 1873. Community churches and schools benefitted from the Halls' generosity. In 1903 their only child, Marion Hall-Fowler (1849-1931), deeded the Hall house to the city, stipulating that it be "forever used for library purposes" and "known as the Hall-Fowler Memorial Library". |
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Ionia Church of Christ 130 East Washington, Ionia |
In Merritt's Hall on January 24, 1859, the Reverend Isaac Errett and forty-three members signed the original charter of the Ionia Church of Christ (First Christian Church). The first church of this denomination had been founded in nearby Muir in 1856. In 1861 James A. Garfield, later the twentieth President of the United States, was a guest speaker at a revival meeting held by the church. The site of the present church was purchased in 1864. The basement was completed in 1867. Services were held there until the church was completed in 1873. Patterned after Romanesque models in the east, the church displays the influence of Philadelphian architect Samuel Sloan. The E. H. Stafford Company of Ionia designed and built the wooden pews. In 1889 the church was enlarged. Its stained glass windows were installed in 1917. |
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Ionia County Courthouse 100 East Main Street, Ionia |
Completed in 1885, the Ionia County Courthouse is the largest structure ever built of Ionia sandstone. The handsome three-and-half-story courthouse replaced an 1840s hall of justice, which had become inadequate for the county's needs. David W. Gibbs (1836-1917), of Toledo, Ohio, designed the 120-by-80-foot Classical Revival structure. The $42,380 courthouse was financed by a special tax levy, which was approved in 1883. The first county offices moved into the new building in January 1886 and court was first held in it in late February of that year. Formal dedication services were observed on July 3, 1886. The interior is adorned with black and white marble floors, oak wainscoting, fourteen marble fireplaces, and a massive walnut and butternut staircase. |
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John C. Blanchard 253 East Main Street, Ionia |
John Celsus Blanchard (1822-1905) epitomizes the American "self-made man". He left his home in Cayuga County, New York, at age fourteen, bound for the western frontier. Blanchard worked as a laborer in Detroit, Livingston and Shiawassee Counties before walking sixty miles to the U.S. Land Office at Ionia. Using $50 of the $53 he had saved, he purchased forty acres of land in 1837. Two years later he began "reading the law" as a student in the law offices of Roof and Bell in Lyons. His appointment as Ionia County prosecuting attorney in 1850 began a distinguished public career. That year Blanchard and his wife, Harriet, moved to Ionia where they devoted themselves to civic affairs and became generous benefactors to churches and schools, including Albion College. |
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Pere Marquette Railway Depot 100 Depot Street, Belding |
Completed in 1921 for the Pere Marquette Railway, this depot is typical of the railroad stations that served Michigan towns during the early decades of the twentieth century. The depot replaced an earlier, wood frame station built during the 1880s when passenger service was introduced by the Detroit, Lansing, and Northern Railroad. By 1900 nineteen passenger trains passed through Belding each day except Sunday. Passenger service ceased in 1941. In 1994 the city of Belding purchased the building. With funds from the Michigan Department of Transportation, the city renovated the depot as offices. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. |
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Portland Downtown Historic District Kent Street, Portland |
Portland's Downtown Historic District is located along Kent and Maple Streets, between Academy Street and West Grand River Avenue, where the Looking Glass and Grand Rivers once powered planing mills, sawmills and gristmills. Early downtown structures were built of wood, but brick buildings replaced these after several major fires occurred in the late nineteenth century. The district contains a variety of architectural styles, from late Victorian era blocks to a Neoclassical and an International style bank and a Modern movie theater. In 1890 the Groton Bridge and Manufacturing Company of New York built the iron bridge across the Grand River that became known as Veterans Memorial Bridge. The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. |
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Saranac Main Street, Saranac |
In 1836, when Saranac was settled, the upper Grand River Valley was a promising but undeveloped area. The soil was fertile; Lake Creek provided water power; and the river was navigable to Grand Rapids. The town grew slowly until 1857, when the coming of the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad made Saranac a shipping center. Local products included such items as flour, lumber, hides, felloes, barrels, and staves. As the forests disappeared, manufacturing declined, and agriculture gradually became the dominant industry. |
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Smyrna 4972 Whites Bridge Road, Smyrna |
In 1843 Calvin Smith became the first white settler in the area. N. G. Chase opened a store here the following year. When Dr. Wilbur Fisher, the area's pioneer physician, began operating a rural post office in 1848, he named the community Smyrna after a Greek city. The village, platted as Mount Vernon, was also called Mount Vernon Mills. In the 1880s, with a population of three hundred, Smyrna had a hotel on this site, plus saw and flour mills, a foundry, three blacksmith shops, two churches, and a wagon shop. |
| St. John the Baptist Cemetery | Consecrated in 1884, Saint John the Baptist Cemetery contains the graves of the Irish founders of the parish and their descendants. The oldest burials date from 1875 and were moved from the original Catholic cemetery, located one mile west of here. The Roach, Welch, Hogan, Cahalan, and Connell families donated the land for the cemetery. At the entrance a shrine pays tribute to Father Eugene R. Fox, who served at St. John's from 1938 to 1986. |
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St. John the Baptist Church 324 S. Washington, Hubbardston |
Organized in 1855 to serve Irish Catholic immigrants, the parish of St. John the Baptist worshipped in a simple church on the Cowman farm until 1868. That year, the parish of seventy families built this church, which seated four hundred people. It was the largest church in Ionia County at that time. St. John's grew to include a cemetery (1884), a rectory (1907), a school (1917), a convent (1927), which was razed in 1987, and a parish hall (1977). |
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St. John's Episcopal Church 107 West Washington, Ionia |
The St. John's Episcopal parish was established on February 4, 1841. Under the leadership of the Reverend Melancthon Hoyt, the parish constructed its first church, now the parish house, that same year. Built on land donated by Ionia's founder, Samuel Dexter, the building was the first church in Ionia County and is thought to be the second oldest Episcopal building in Michigan. It was consecrated on April 24, 1842, by the Reverend Samuel McCoskry, the first bishop of Michigan. In 1882-83 the present brick church was erected at a cost of $7,334.89. This Gothic-style structure, with English cathedral glass windows, was consecrated on July 2, 1890, by the Right Reverend George de Normandie Gillespie, the first bishop of western Michigan. |
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White's Bridge White's Bridge Road over Flat River, Smyrna |
This picturesque covered bridge, one of the last of its kind in Michigan, was built in 1867 by Jared N. Brazee and J. N. Walker, builders of several covered bridges in this area. The name of the bridge derives from the White family, a prominent pioneer family. The crossing of the Flat River here was known as White's Crossing before the first primitive bridge was built. In 1840 a bridge of log-corduroy construction was erected. It was replaced by this covered bridge, costing seventeen hundred dollars. It is of the through-truss type with a gable roof. The hand-hewed trusses are sheeted over with rough pine boards. Wooden pegs and hand-cut square iron nails are used to secure the various parts of the bridge. White's Bridge has been in constant use since 1867, proof that it was well made. (Rebuilt after destroyed by fire) |
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