The history of Casco Michigan is easy to miss if you only scan headlines. This is not a city, a resort, or a battlefield. It is a farm township in southwest St. Clair County, laid out on the federal land grid and organized in 1849, when only 184 residents lived there.
Yet a handful of real photo postcards from 1888 to about 1910 capture more about the history of Casco Michigan than many official reports. They show children lined up at a rural school, workers perched on ladders in an orchard, bean farmers standing in their fields, and a young man proud of his new camera.
These images, matched with county histories and township records, help rebuild the everyday history of Casco Michigan at the turn of the 20th century.
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Video – Postcards Don’t Lie: Casco, Michigan Was All Work, No Fancy Resort
Rails, Roads, and a Township Name
Casco sits a few miles north of Lake St. Clair and about twenty miles southwest of Port Huron. Early histories point out that all parts of the township lay within reach of both the St. Clair River and the Grand Trunk Railway, which meant farm products could move to distant markets.
The township’s name likely came from Casco, Maine. Local research notes that early supervisor William D. Hart married Emeline Clark, whose family had roots in Maine. Historian William Jenks suggested that her father, a sea captain from that region, proposed the name when the old “China Township” was reorganized.
By 1882 Casco held 2,212 residents, with 863 children of school age. Many families were of German origin, part of a wider settlement pattern in St. Clair and neighboring counties. Their work built the farm economy we see in the postcards.
“District No. 7 Casco 1888”: A One-Room School Crowd
The school card labeled “District No. 7 Casco 1888” shows a crowded one-room school with two trees framing the scene. Boys stand in shirts, suspenders, and in some cases bare feet. Girls wear long dresses. A U.S. flag leans against a trunk at one edge of the group.
County history and township records confirm that Casco maintained multiple small school districts in the late 19th century, fed by farm families spread across 22,755 acres. The image matches those descriptions: a modest building, a large class, and evidence that education held value even when children were badly needed in the fields.
A. Johnston’s Orchard: Fruit for a Wider Market
The postcard “A. Johnston’s Orchard” comes from the David V. Tinder Collection at the University of Michigan and is filed under “Real Photo Postcards – Michigan – St. Clair County – Casco“. It shows at least a dozen people in a dense orchard, framed by tall wooden ladders. Barrels and baskets sit ready for packing.
By the early 1900s, county histories describe beans, sugar beets, alfalfa, and fruit as key crops for St. Clair County farmers, including those in Casco. Fruit growers relied on railroads and river ports to move perishables quickly. The formal posing in this card suggests pride in a well-run commercial operation, not just a family patch.
Brever Bros. Beans and the Farmhouse on 9-15-07
A second postcard in the Tinder collection reads “Beans Grown by Brever Bros., Casco, Mich.” and is also filed under Casco in St. Clair County. Three men stand in a dense field of beans, wearing ties and hats. They look more like owners than field hands.
Dry beans were an important cash crop in parts of eastern Michigan. County histories of St. Clair County mention beans among the significant products of townships like Casco, where well-drained sandy loam favored legumes and sugar beets.
Another postcard, labeled “Residence of Paul Brever, Casco, Mich., 9-15-07,” shows a tidy farmhouse, young shade trees, and residents lined up along a fence. The home sits in a settled yard, not new land. It illustrates what bean and mixed farming could buy after a few good seasons: a solid house, barns, and a measure of security.
Taken together, the bean field and the farmhouse show both sides of the history of Casco Michigan. The field is all labor and risk. The house is what people hoped to hold onto.
Churches, Parsonages, and a Second Casco
The card marked “East Casco Church and Parsonage” adds a twist. Stylistically, it could fit almost anywhere in rural Michigan. The church has a modest tower, a brick sanctuary, and a nearby parsonage, with barns stretching off to the side.
The twist is that one card in the set, “East Casco Church and Parsonage,” looks to be known today as St James United Church of Christ. Even archivists get confused.
A Young Man With a Camera
The cyanotype photograph of a young man in overalls holding a film or plate holder marked “Exposed” shows another side of rural life. Cameras had become affordable by the early 1900s, and postcard-size prints were common. Here, a farm youth stands in tall grass, looking directly into the lens. The joke is mild, but it signals a level of comfort with new technology.
For the history of Casco Michigan, that detail matters. It shows that rural residents were not stuck in the past. They experimented with cameras, used the mail, and engaged with new media, even as they kept to old work routines.
A Few Snapshots of the History of Casco Michigan
When we line up these images next to township records and county histories, a consistent picture appears. Casco was shaped by federal land surveys, canal and rail access, and a farm economy built on beans, sugar beets, alfalfa, and fruit. The history of Casco Michigan is written in one-room schools packed with children, farmhouses bought with years of labor, orchards that fed distant markets, and church buildings that anchored scattered families.
The postcards do not show dramatic events. They do something harder. They show ordinary people who thought their lives were important enough to print on real photo cards and send through the mail. More than a century later, those choices allow us to see how one small Michigan township worked, worshiped, and hoped.
Works Cited For The History of Casco Michigan
“Casco Township.” St. Clair County Michigan Genealogy and History, Genealogy Trails, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
Arroyo, Rod. “Casco Township History.” Casco Township (St. Clair, MI), Casco Township, updated 2024, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
Jenks, William Lee. “St. Clair County, Michigan, Its History and Its People.” 2 vols., The Lewis Publishing Company, 1912.
Andreas, A. T. “History of St. Clair County, Michigan.” A. T. Andreas & Co., 1883.
“A. Johnston’s Orchard.” David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
“Beans Grown by Brever Bros., Casco, Mich.” David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
“1888 St. Clair County Histories: County, Cities, Towns.” Port Huron Area History & Preservation Association, 22 July 2019, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
Leverett, Frank. “Flowing Wells and Municipal Water Supplies in the Southern Portion of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan.” U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper 182, 1906, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
“Lynn B. Fleming Obituary.” South Haven Tribune via Legacy.com, 10 Mar. 2024, accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
