Old Rawsonville Village

Rawsonville, now a ghost town, was once a thriving village. On September 13, 1823, the first land patent in Van Buren Township was given to Henry Snow for this site, which was soon known as Snow’s Landing. Called Rawsonville by 1838, the community reached its peak around the time of the Civil War. It then boasted sawmills, gristmills, two cooper shops, a stove factory, several drygoods and general stores, a wagon maker and three saloons. Rawsonville’s failure to attract railroad service led to its decline. By the 1880s many of its businesses and mills had closed and its residents were moving away. In 1925 a dam erected on the Huron River covered most of the remaining structures with the newly-formed Belleville Lake.