The White Pigeon Prairie U.S. Land Office

This land office was created after the Treaty of Chicago that was established on August 29th, 1821. This treaty made it so nations around the southwest area of Michigan, including the Potawatomi nation, had to relocate. The land was surveyed and the land post was opened around 1831. White Pigeon was chosen because at the time it was "one of the largest towns in the western Michigan territory."

Acreage six times the size of Washington D.C. (about 260,000 acres of land) was sold by the government from 1831 to 1834. The cost of the land at this time was about $1.25. In 2018, an acre of agricultural land was about $4,00 dollars. Because of the high number of people buying land, and to make it easier for those who were far away and had to walk or ride a horse to this land office, there were more land offices built in Bronson, Kalamazoo, and Ionia. Ionia. In just eleven days of business days in 1836, these land offices sold about $190,000 worth of land.

This structure in White Pigeon has been well-preserved and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Western expansion was a result of market forces and investment in transportation infrastructure that tied western farms to the market economy. Together with the removal of Native peoples and the creation of land offices, the United States government was able to fund operations through tariffs and the sale of land.

Grand Rapids Historical Commission. “The Land Office.” History Grand Rapids.org by the Grand Rapids Historical Commission. GRCMC. 10 Feb. 2010. http://www.historygrandrapids.org/audio/2452/the-land-office

“U.S. Land Office.” MichMarkers. MichMarkers. 2020. http://www.michmarkers.com/default?page=L1205

Baratta, Julia. “Historical Society Works to Restore Land Office.” Sturgis Journal. Gannett Co. 11 Jul. 2019. https://www.sturgisjournal.com/news/20190711/historical-society-works-to-restore-land-office

Perlman, Merrill. “How Big Is Big? When Numbers are Meaningless.” Columbia Journalism Review. Columbia Journalism Review. 1 Jun. 2010. https://archives.cjr.org/language_corner/how_big_is_big.php

Wolf, Christopher. "Chris Wolf: 2018 Michigan Agricultural Land Values." Michigan State University. Michigan State University. 19 Oct. 2018. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/wolf_landvalues18#:~:text=In%20the%20Southern%20Lower%20Peninsula,and%20%242%2C219%20per%20acre%2C%20respectively.