village of alton
Visit Alton
Church Historic Museum
The Historical Village of Alton
"In the early 1830s the
settlement known as Alton grew up in this vicinity.
A log schoolhouse, the first in the township, was
built on this corner in 1839. In 1842, Gideon
Hendrick and Newcomb Godfrey organized the Christian
Church Society, and in 1868 the society built this
structure. The Honorable Walter White, justice of
the peace for the village, served as the area’s
first postmaster from 1851 to 1866. W. H. Keech and
his wife, Jenny (Carver), ran the general store that
later served as the post office.
Alton was a thriving village
in the years following the Civil War. Porter’s flour
mill was built in 1865. By 1870, Edmund Ring had a
sawmill a half mile west of Alton Corners. There he
made wooden farm wagons and rakes until around 1900.
In 1880 the community boasted a cooper, three
blacksmith shops, two carriage repair shops, two
shoemakers, a general store, a cabinetmaker, and a
machinery dealer. Alton began to lose population
around 1900 after the Pere Marquette Railroad, which
ran to nearby Moseley and Lowell, bypassed the
village."
-From the Michigan
Designated Historical Site marker
Alton Cemetery Snow Covered
Alton Grist Mill
Alton Church
