By Staff
In 1836 as Michigan struggled to become a state, Charles Noble, a land investor from Monroe, bought land in central Ingham County. Noble knew that Michiganians had agreed to discuss relocating the capital city a decade after becoming a state. Noble anticipated that the land he bought in the south central Lower Peninsula might be eligible for the state's new capital. Noble platted a town and built a sawmill and a gristmill. He even named his town after Michigan's first state governor, Stevens T. Mason. But in 1847, lawmakers selected a wilderness area 12 miles to the northwest (present day Lansing) as the state's capital.
Although Noble's dream did not materialize as he had hoped, Mason did become the county seat, which left it the center of the region's political, legal, social and economic activity. Ingham County's first courthouse was built in Mason in 1843. It was replaced with a brick structure in 1858. The settlement of about 400 people grew and prospered and was incorporated as a village in 1865. The railroad reached Mason in 1865, boosting an already bustling local economy that included sawmills, carriage and cart factories, copper shops, a steam flourmill and a buffalo robe manufacturer that received hides via rail from the western plains. In 1875, Mason became a city.