Alton Pioneer Village / Alton Pioneer Village

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 Hendricks 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.