Hillsdale County, Michigan

Hillsdale County, named for its pleasant rolling green hills and valleys, was organized in 1839 with the city of Hillsdale as the county seat. During this time, Potawatomi Chief Baw Beese supervised the transport of his tribe to Iowa. Baw Beese Lake, southeast of Hillsdale, was named in his honor. In 1843, the Michigan Southern Railroad, beginning at Monroe, was stopped here due to a construction delay, resulting in economic prosperity as Hillsdale became the railway’s western end. Following the Civil War, agriculture, including corn, hay, soybeans, cows, poultry and hog-farming, gave the county a stable economic base, and the area grew.

Today, that economic base continues to diversify, by the addition of extensive manufacturing. Hillsdale County also has ample outdoor recreational opportunities, with over a hundred inland lakes, and containing the headwaters of the Grand, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Raisin and Maumee Rivers. It is also the home to Hillsdale College, circa 1845, the first college to admit women in Michigan.

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