The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Lansing

LANSING, a city and the capital of Michigan, in Ingham co., on Grand river, here spanned by an iron and two wooden bridges, 85 m. N. W. of Detroit; lat. 42° 46′ 28″ N., lon. 84° 32′ 40″ W.; pop. in 1850, 1,229; in 1860, 3,074; in 1870, 5,241; in 1874, 7,442. It is regularly laid out, with wide streets crossing each other at right angles and lighted with gas. The state house is a large, plain frame building, mostly erected in 1849; a three-story brick structure, for the temporary accommodation of some of the state officers, was built in 1871. A new state house, to be completed in 1877, at a cost of $1,200,000, is in course of construction. This edifice is to be of iron and stone, in the Palladian style of architecture, four stories high, with basement, 345 ft. in length, not including the porticos, and 191 ft. deep.

New State Capitol at Lansing, Michigan.

The state reform school occupies a farm of 139 acres in the E. part of the city, and has about 200 inmates. It has four brick buildings, the central one being 48 ft. long, 56 ft. deep, and four stories high, with two wings extending north and south, each 95 ft. long, 33 ft. deep, and three stories high, and a third extending east, 83 ft. long, 30 ft. deep, and three stories high. The state agricultural college occupies a farm of 676 acres, 3 m. E. of the city limits. The buildings, four in number, stand upon a slight eminence amid forest trees; the grounds immediately around have been handsomely laid out. It was chartered in New State Capitol at Lansing, Michigan. 1855, and subsequently received the congressional land grant to the state for an agricultural college. The number of students in 1873 was 143. The odd fellows' institute, for the care and education of orphans of the order, in the N. W. extremity of the city, was organized in 1871. It occupies a tract of 45 acres and a brick building (since enlarged) formerly used as a female college, and has a library of 1,500 volumes. At the mouth of Cedar river in the southern portion of the city is an artesian well, yielding mineral water of medicinal properties. Lansing is well supplied with railroads, four lines centring here, viz.: the Jackson, Lansing, and Saginaw; Detroit, Lansing, and Lake Michigan; Peninsular; and Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. It is surrounded by a fertile country, abounding in timber and coal, and has an important and increasing trade. The river affords water power, which has as yet been but little utilized. The principal manufactories are three of sash, doors, and blinds, two of chairs, one of spokes, felloes, and bent work, two of barrels, three of iron work, including agricultural implements, sewing machines, and steam engines, several saw mills, a flouring mill, and a woollen mill. There are two national banks with a capital of $175,000, and an insurance company with $100,000 capital. The public schools are graded, including a high school department, and in 1873 had 27 teachers and 1,050 pupils. The Michigan homœopathic college, open to both sexes, is situated here. The state library has more than 20,000 volumes, the public school library about 500, and that of the Lansing library and literary association about 1,000. Two weekly newspapers are published, and there are 15 churches, viz.: Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Freewill Baptist, Lutheran, German Evangelical Lutheran, Methodist (5), Presbyterian (2), Roman Catholic, and Universalist.—Lansing was made the seat of government in 1847, when its settlement was barely begun, and was incorporated as a city in 1859.