LANSING, capital city of Michigan, U.S.A., Ingham county, on the Grand river at the mouth of the Cedar, 85 m. W.N.W. of Detroit. It is on Federal highways 16, 27 and 127; has a municipal airport ; and is served by the Grand Trunk, the Michigan Central, the New York Central, and the Pere Marquette railways, and by electric interurban railways and motor coach and motor truck lines in every direction. The population was 57,327 in 1920 (88% native white) and was 78,397 in 1930 by the Federal census. The centre of the city is a small plateau, surrounded on three sides by a bend of the Grand river. Here, in a io-acre park, stands the State capitol, erected in 1873-8. Near by is the fine state office and library building, completed in 1927 at a cost of $3,000,000. The State industrial school for boys and the state school for the blind occupy spacious grounds within the city limits. At East Lansing, a beautiful residential suburb, is the State college of agriculture and applied science, the oldest agricultural college in the United States, provided for by the State constitution in 1850 and opened in 1857. Water power from the Grand river has been an important factor in the development of Lansing throughout its history, and is still used to some extent. There are about 200 manufacturing establishments, employing 22,000 men and women, of whom 17,000 work in 18 plants, including those of the Reo Motor company, the Durant Motor company, the Olds Motor works, now a subsidiary of the General Motors corporation, and the Motor Wheel corporation. Among other important manu
factures are automobile bodies, wheelbarrows and factory trucks, gasoline engines, Diesel engines, hoists, pumps, air compressors and screw machine products. The aggregate output in 1927 was valued at $154,928,757. The city's assessed valuation of property in 1927 was Lansing was settled in 1837, and in 1847, when still isolated and covered with forests, was chosen as the site of the state capital, on the decision of the legislature to move the seat of government from Detroit to a more central spot. A plank road to Detroit was finished in 1852; the city was chartered in 1859; and in 186o it had a population of 3,074. Between 1863 and 1873 five railroads entered the city, and soon the areas along the river marked on the first plats of the city as designed for "hydraulic manufacturing" were fully occupied. Between 1900 and 1910 the population of the city nearly doubled, and between 1910 and 1920 the increase was almost as great (84%).