Whispers of the past hint at the earliest history of Lansing, Michigan in Old Town, while the revitalized arts, entertainment, commercial and residential area speaks to a bright future for this mid-Michigan city.
James Seymour and Jacob Cooley purchased land in the Old Town area from the federal government during the 1830s land rush that Michigan experienced as it readied to become a state in 1837.
Seymour helped develop the area with the construction a sawmill, a dam and a wooden bridge over the Grand River as he lobbied for the new settlement to become home to Michigan's State Capitol.
Old Town continued to grow and the Burchard family became the area's first residential settlers in 1843.
Seymour lost the fight for the capitol building to a site two miles down the road, but he built a hotel to serve the legislators when they traveled from all over the state for legislative sessions. The Seymour House hotel opened in 1848, just in time for the first legislative session.
The next 100 years or so were busy and profitable for the largely blue-collar community, which had a busy train depot from 1876 until 1917 and became the village of North Lansing.
However, the 1960s and 1970s brought an economic downturn, increasing vacancies, deteriorating historic buildings and other urban problems to the once-thriving community.
Old Town was old news.
As the 1970s wore on, the city and residents, led by urban pioneers like Robert Busby, began exploring ways to revitalize Old Town.
You can see the results of their efforts in this Lansing-area gem that generates a lot of excitement as a center for the Greater Lansing arts and cultural community.
We visited Old Town recently on a quiet weekday morning...a quiet and wet weekday morning.
The historic commercial district had a nice small-town feel with art galleries, antique shops and other unique stores, many behind historic facades in an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Old Town boosters began serious revitalization work with the forming of groups like the Old Town Business and Art Development Association in 1984. Nearly thirty years later, you can see the result of their vision for the area with a thriving small business community that attracts a diverse group of business owners (many of them are minority or female business owners). Nearly 100 small business call Old Town home today, and the district boasts one of the highest concentration of art-based businesses in Michigan.
Becoming part of the Main Street program in 1996 and the establishment of many annual festivals and other events further boosted Old Town's development as vacancy rates dropped from 90 percent to less than 10 percent, crime rates became among the lowest in Lansing and over 120,000 visitors began flocking to the area each year.
Some of the more than 100 popular festivals attracting visitors to Old Town throughout the year include: Jazz Fest, Blues Fest, OktoberFest, Festival of the Sun, Festival of the Moon and Scrapfest (an imaginative event when teams create pieces of public art from items found in a local scrap yard).
Old Town is also an excellent place to begin your exploration of Lansing as it is the trail head of the city's River Trail.
The trail passes through many of the city's parks and through, or near, attractions like Lansing's museum district, the Lansing City Market and the city's zoo.
The trail for walkers, joggers, bicyclists, skateboarders and in-line skaters is a 13-mile route that runs through a number of attractions and destinations in Lansing and the adjacent college town of East Lansing, which is home to Michigan State University.
Most trails are 8 to 10 feet wide and paved with asphalt or are boardwalks. The route is handicapped accessible, and trail users will find amenities like benches, rest rooms, trash cans and signage all along the route.
We couldn't really explore the trail head in Old Town the morning we were there as the wooden section of the trail going under the Grand River Bridge in Old Town (trail mile marker 0.5) was partially underwater because of an extraordinarily wet spring that left many places in mid- and western Michigan flooded.
The trail does look like a great way to ditch the car and explore Lansing on foot in drier weather, though.
Want to learn more about Lansing and its history? Check out Lansing: City on the Grand 1836 -1939 by James MacLean and Craig A. Whitford.
Thanks Thanks to the Greater Lansing Michigan Convention and Visitors Bureau for sponsoring my visit to Lansing, providing lodging, meals and a tour of Lansing area attractions for my review during my recent visit there, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
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