Smyrna

Smyrna is a Michigan historical marker in Smyrna, Ionia County, dedicated 1983.

4972 Whites Bridge Road, Smyrna

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In 1843 Calvin Smith became the first white settler in the area. N. G. Chase opened a store here the following year. When Dr. Wilbur Fisher, the area’s pioneer physician, began operating a rural post office in 1848, he named the community Smyrna after a Greek city. The village, platted as Mount Vernon, was also called Mount Vernon Mills. In the 1880s, with a population of three hundred, Smyrna had a hotel on this site, plus saw and flour mills, a foundry, three blacksmith shops, two churches, and a wagon shop.

TodayHistorical map

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Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library

Historical maps covering this location

1848 · Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1853 · Map of the surveyed part of Michigan (Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library)
1854 · A map of the surveyed part of Michigan / by John Farmer ; engraved by S. Stiles & Co. (University Library, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
1873 · Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1874 · Colton's Michigan (1874) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Map of the surveyed part of Michigan, 1853, covering the location of Smyrna, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Map of the surveyed part of Michigan, 1853, covering this location. Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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Marker data: Michigan History Center
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Smyrna

Historical maps covering this location

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