Michigan · St. Joseph River Valley
Van Buren County
Blueberries, lake towns and the Lake Michigan dunes: the county between Kalamazoo and the big lake.
Project Scroll is an independent local-history website. This is not an official page of Van Buren County or of any township, city or village in it. For official business, contact the county or local offices directly.
Welcome
Van Buren County, Michigan
Van Buren County runs from the Lake Michigan shore at South Haven inland past Paw Paw, its county seat, toward Kalamazoo. It was set off in 1829 and organized in 1837, and named for Martin Van Buren, then Secretary of State and later Vice President and President.
About 75,600 people live here today (75,587 at the 2020 census), in small cities and villages, eighteen townships and lake communities from Sister Lakes to the dunes. Pick a place to begin.
Cities and villages
GoblesCity · Gobleville, a Goble family plat on the Kalamazoo and South Haven railroad.
HartfordCity · ‘Bloody Corners’ on the Paw Paw River road, made a town by the railroad.
DecaturVillage · A railroad village in the township of Van Buren County’s first settler.
LawrenceVillage · Mason, then Brush Creek, on the old stage road west of Paw Paw.
LawtonVillage · Paw Paw Station, an iron town that became the heart of the grape belt.
MattawanVillage · A Michigan Central stop named for a Hudson River village.
Paw PawVillage · Peter Gremps’s mill town on the Territorial road, and the county seat since 1840.
Keeler