St. Clair County History

Enter the doors of the St. Clair Historical Museum and travel back more than 250 years to the community’s beginning as a British Fort, moving to its days as a Michigan lumbering and brick manufacturing mecca, through its transition to salt purification, and shipbuilding.

Opened on February 11, 2001, the Thomas Edison Depot Museum was the second satellite facility to open as part of the Port Huron Museum. It is housed inside the historic Fort Gratiot train depot built in 1858 by the Grand Trunk Railway, and is the actual depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a news reporter between 1859 and 1863. Trains connecting here carried people and freight between Port Huron and Detroit, Point Edward/Sarnia (Ontario), and other destinations, linking Port Huron to the rest of the world.

The Port Huron Museum of Arts and History was founded in 1967, and through a community-wide volunteer effort, opened its doors in 1968. Housed in an historic Carnegie Library (built in 1904), the Museum provides exhibitions and programs relating to local history, fine arts (with an emphasis on regional art), decorative arts, natural history, and Great Lakes marine lore. The Museum is the only year-round, multi-disciplinary cultural institution in Michigan’s Thumb Region (a five-county area). The Museum began as a completely volunteer-operated organization, and now employs a staff of seven full-time, three part-time, and seasonal part-time staff during the summer months. In addition to serving our own community, the Museum is recognized throughout the state of Michigan and nationally as a center for research in folk arts, archeology, and Great Lakes marine lore.

Enter into the past when ice was delivered to your door by horse and wagon! Displayed, are over 3,000 items used in the cutting, harvesting, storing, selling and use of natural ice from one of the largest industries in the United States around 1900. View a rare film of ice harvesting in the early 1920s. See ice boxes, tools and an actual size ice wagon. See antique collections: mild industry, license plates, vehicles, dolls and doll buggies and much more.

Lightships are floating lighthouses that are anchored in areas where it was too deep, expensive, or impractical to construct a lighthouse. Lightships displayed a light at the top of a mast and, in areas of fog, also sounded a fog signal and radio beacon. The fog signals used over the years consisted of bells, whistles, trumpets, sirens, and horns. Early fog horns were powered by steam and later by air compressors. The HURON Lightship sounded her fog horn signal in 3 second blasts every 30 seconds and was known locally as “Old B.O.” because of the familiar sound her horn made.

Fort Gratiot was built in 1814 during the War of 1812 to guard the juncture of the St. Clair River and Lake Huron. Named after the engineer who supervised construction, Charles Gratiot, Fort Gratiot would be occupied on and off  by the United States Army until 1879.  With a surge of vessel traffic on Lake Huron in the early 1800s, the need for a Light Station to guide vessels through the water way became very important.

How can classic be defined? Sleek, stylish, perfection, unique, timeless, and valuable are words of articulate, lasting design. If you assemble these words in the form of a tangible object you have defined the unique and beautiful Wills Ste. Claire automobile. Manufactured by C. H. Wills and Company, in Marysville, Michigan, from 1921-1926, the Wills St. Claire quickly became one of the shining stars of the auto world in the 1920s. This timeless classic has graced the auto world with its stylish and perfected form that still pleases classic auto enthusiasts the world over. We trust your visit to our site will be informative and enlightening as you take an inside look at a man who designed and manufactured one of the finest engineered automobiles in the world.

Our Museum started out as the Newport Academy, founded by Emily Ward, built in 1847 by her brother Eber Brock Ward. The original location was on the northwest corner of South Main Street and Washington Street, in Newport (Newport was later changed to Marine City).

Captain David Lester’s most notable contribution to the nautical history of the great lakes was the launching of the VH Ketchum which his shipyard built. On April 16th, 1874, when it was launched at Marine City, it was the largest ship on the Great Lakes at that time. Today the VH Ketchum is still the Flag Ship of the Interlake Steamship Company, Richmond, Ohio, and an oil painting of the vessel hangs in their boardroom.

The Harsens Island / St. Clair Flats Historical Society’s mission is to collect, protect, preserve, and share with the public the unique historical artifacts and information that represents the diverse cultural composition of the people that occupied the area of the St. Clair River Delta that is Harsens Island and the St. Clair Flats. 

The St. Clair County Farm Museum was proposed in 1964 by the administrator of the St. Clair County Medical Center. He saw how technology was rapidly changing life in rural America and realized that there was a need to savor a slice of the past so that the area’s youth could explore and learn how their forefathers lived. By seeing a slice of the past, an appreciation of today’s lifestyle can be realized. The founding Museum members opened the Museum on July 16, 1966.

This building stands on land from a grant made to Andrew Westbrook before Michigan became a State. The exact age of the school is not known, however, this brick school was in use when East China Township was chartered in 1859. Records found in China Township indicate there was a school on this site in 1823. This building was in continuous use as a school until 1954 when the elementary school on Meisner Road, now used as an administrative office, was built and one room schoolhouses in the Township were closed. Restoration of this building was funded entirely by East China Township with the intention of preserving its oldest public building as a living museum.

The Maritime Museum has several displays exploring maritime history in the area.

The mission of Capac Historical Society is to provide a meeting place for those people interested in local history, publicly promote knowledge of the history of the Capac Community, promote appreciation of the history of the Capac Community, procure articles deemed worthy of preservation, and provide safe storage and display of these articles.