Salt exploration and extraction began in St. Clair County as early as 1863. Several people tried to make drilling cost-effective. The St. Clair Rock Salt Company came together in 1886, later becoming Diamond Crystal Salt Company.

This excellent Queen Anne-style house, completed in 1890, was the residence of Wilbur F. Davidson who opened a dry goods store in Port Huron which later served as the first electric light plant in the county.

Built in 1925 by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works, this steel-framed water tower was the main water supplier for "The Colony on the Ste. Claire"--a secluded residential community established in Clay Township during the early 1920s.

The Cole United Methodist Church, formed in 1878, was named for Jesse and Adah Cole, who held services in their home during the 1860s.

This Greek Revival home was built by Charles H. Beers around 1849. Since then it’s served as a home and office, public library, and later a health department and township office.

In 1870 the Port Huron and Lake Michigan Railroad Company, later the Grand Trunk Railroad, opened a rail line and depot in Capac. The depot reopened as the Capac Community Historical Museum in 1994.

C. Harold Wills began working as a draftsman for Henry Ford in 1902 and later Ford’s chief engineer and metallurgist who designed every Ford car until he resigned in 1919.

In 1875 members donated labor, materials, and money to build this chapel, designed by church member William Morton.

Thomas Clegg (1863-1939) and his English-born father, John, built “The Thing,” the first recorded self-propelled vehicle in Michigan (and perhaps in the country) in 1884-85.

Circuit riders, who traveled through local villages, served the Watrousville United Methodist Church when it was established in 1856.

Aaron Watrous and his crew of loggers came here in 1852 to cut the virgin pine of the Cass River Valley. In 1860 he platted the town, naming it Watrousville, and a few years later constructed this building as a general store.

Cork pine grew in abundance along the Cass River and was much in demand. These kings of the forest grew to a height of 150 feet. With forests depleted, a diversified economy developed here—agriculture, manufacturing, and commercial business.

On March 11, 1882, thirty-three years after the nation’s first state fair was held in Detroit, the Tuscola County Fair was organized as the Caro District Agricultural Association.

Peter DeWitt Bush (1818-1913), the second permanent resident of the village of Caro, donated this site for the county courthouse square in 1866. In 1873 the county replaced the former church with a brick courthouse that served the community's needs until 1932 when the present Art Deco style structure was completed.

The Tuscola County Advertiser began publishing on August 21, 1868. The city’s oldest surviving business establishment was founded by Henry G. Chapin, a native of Conesus, New York.

This skillfully designed board and batten Gothic Revival church first served local Episcopalians in 1880. The congregation had been formed in 1871, the year the town was incorporated.

The state highway system began with the State Reward Road program, created by the Michigan Legislature in 1905. The program provided "rewards" to local governments for road improvements made according to state standards. Elkland Township was the first municipality to receive a reward.

The beet sugar industry in Michigan began growing rapidly in the late nineteenth century and is still a popular crop to this day. With more than a century under its belt, there is no shortage of history, Peninsular Sugar Refining Company included.

In 1884 Millington citizens decided to construct a modern brick building. Between 1947 and 1970 eighteen rural schools consolidated to form the Millington Community School District.

In 1894 William Ray Perry built this house on the farm that was purchased by his father in 1829. The Queen Anne house displays Eastlake ornamentation. Perry’s forbearers had arrived in New England in 1650. In 1825 Edmund Perry, William’s great-uncle, moved his immediate family from Rhode Island to the Grand Blanc area; other family members followed. The Perrys were the township’s second pioneer family, and this vicinity became popularly known as the “Perry Settlement”.