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MASON AREA COMMUNITY RESOURCE GUIDE
MASON: A HISTORY Mason is centrally located in the state of Michigan, just a few minutes south of Lansing, the state capital. As the Ingham County seat, Mason is known for its historic courthouse, charming downtown, and high quality school system. While Lansing is the state capital, Mason has remained the Ingham County seat, making Michigan the only state in the country with a capital city that is not also the county seat. The first officially recognized inhabitants of the Mason area were the Native Americans from the Potawatomi, Chippewa, Ojibwa and Ottawa tribes, including the famous Chief Okemos. Chief Okemos and his band used the area for hunting grounds, and there were numerous trails that the Native Americans made as they lived upon the land. These trails were later used by the early settlers as they made their way into what would become Mason. In the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819, the United States government negotiated with prominent Native American chiefs, resulting in the U.S. government taking possession of most of the land in lower Michigan. In the 1830s and 1840s, early pioneers began to purchase the land that would eventually become Mason and the surrounding areas. As more pioneers chose to settle in the area, land was converted for agricultural use. This reduced the amount of wild game that the Native Americans had counted on. Also, diseases such as smallpox and measles hit the Native American population hard and their population dwindled, as the land became settled by more and more pioneer families. However, up to the early 1900s the local Native American Ojibwa tribe had a noticeable and interactive presence in the town. Although agriculture played a prominent role in Mason’s history, as the County seat, the community was also the center of Ingham County activity. An early timeline, up to the 2000s, traces some of the major developments of Mason that forged the thriving city it has become today.
1830s
In 1836, Lewis Lacey was the first settler to arrive in the area that would become Mason. He built a sawmill for Noble & Co. This was the first sawmill in the county. In 1836, Charles Noble purchased a tract of forest and cleared 20 acres of it. It is said he was in search of a central location to establish a new capital when Michigan became a state. He named the area “Mason Center”, though the “Center” was soon dropped. Mason is named after Stevens T. Mason, Michigan’s first governor, who served from 1835 to 1840. In 1837, Judge Ephraim Bushnell Danforth, an associate of Noble & Co. settled in Mason. In 1837, the first schoolhouse in Mason was built. Miss Lucy Rolfe was the teacher and there were eight students at that time.
1840s
In 1840, Mason was selected as Ingham County’s seat due its central location. In 1840, the Rayner House was built by John Rayner for the family. Located across the road from Rayner Park, Rayner eventually accumulated 320 acres of land. Legend has it that Chief Okemos’s twin sons played with the eldest son, William Rayner, on this land. In 1842, two brothers, John and Mark Childs, started the Ingham Telegraph, the first newspaper to be printed in Ingham County. However, it was out of business eight months later due to the differing political views of county treasurer Jason Packard. In 1843, Ingham County’s first downtown courthouse was built in Mason. In 1847, Charles Noble argued to have Mason named Michigan’s state capital. Lansing was chosen instead, but Mason remained the county seat.
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