Cass County, Michigan

Dowagiac, Michigan its history, in the record

County CassFounded 1848City 1877

Dowagiac, 1860 and today Walk old Front Street On the valley map

Dowagiac High School at Oak St. 1914, 1914. Tinder Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan

Dowagiac grew where the Michigan Central Railroad crossed Dowagiac Creek in 1848, and was incorporated as a village in 1863 and a city in 1877. Its name is Potawatomi, from a word usually read as “fishing water.” It became the county’s manufacturing town: the Round Oak Stove works, founded by P. D. Beckwith in 1871, and the grain drills of the Dowagiac Manufacturing Company.

The town at a glance

Founded: settled at the railroad crossing, 1848; village 1863; city 1877.
Name: Potawatomi, for the creek; several spellings in the early record.
In the county histories: Rogers (1875), Mathews (1882) and Glover (1906) each give the village its own chapter, with the first merchants, mills and churches named.
On the map: the 1860 wall map carries a plan of Dowagiac with its lots; lay it over today’s streets.
Industry: Round Oak stoves from 1871; at its height in the 1910s the works employed about 1,200 of the town’s 5,000 people.

On old postcards

Beckwith Building, Dowagiac, Mich, on an old postcard — **Beckwith Building, Dowagiac, Mich** · 1912, C. R. Childs Tinder Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan · source

M.C. R.R. Station, Dowagiac, Mich, on an old postcard — **M.C. R.R. Station, Dowagiac, Mich** · 1910, Will P. Canaan Co. Tinder Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan · source

M. C. Railway and Drill Works, Dowagiac, Mich, on an old postcard — **M. C. Railway and Drill Works, Dowagiac, Mich** · 1912 Tinder Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan · source

Our New Fire Truck, Homecoming Aug. 1912, Dowagiac, Mich, on an old postcard — **Our New Fire Truck, Homecoming Aug. 1912, Dowagiac, Mich** · 1912 Tinder Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan · source

From public-domain postcards and photographs, each linked to the library that holds it. See them all.

Where to look

Dowagiac’s records are thick: a weekly press from the 1860s and a daily later, the Round Oak company papers, and city directories from the 1890s that list the heads of every household. The desk reads them for Cass County families as a matter of course. The records page links each source where it is held, and the glossary explains the words the old records use.

Project Scroll is independent research and is not affiliated with the City of Dowagiac or any historical society. Corrections are welcome at research@projectscroll.com.

Dowagiac, 1860 and today Play the hunt Research services