The Shadow Town of Gresham: Eaton County, Michigan

The village of Gresham sits quietly in Eaton County's Chester Township.

It was settled in 1883 and a post office began operations that same year.  The P.O.'s first postmaster was Syrenus P. Roller, a position he held until it closed on March 31, 1903.

As you can see in the atlases below, in the hub of Gresham was a schoolhouse, some churches, and a good handful of shops, businesses, and homes. It seemed to be growing and prospering around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.

The Gresham United Methodist Church still stands, as it has since 1881...and it has its own Historical Marker. It reads: “Members of the Gresham United Methodist Church first worshiped in a school and in homes. In 1879 Palmer and Rebecca McDonald gave this site on which to build a church. In order to erect the church, people in the community donated logs, which were cut at Dade Merriam’s sawmill. The building’s pointed-arch windows and steeply pitched roof exemplify the prevalence of Gothic Revival elements in rural church architecture. The church was completed in 1881”.

Today all that remains, other than some residences and the Methodist Church, are farms and a second church.

Three-and-a-half miles southwest of Gresham is another cool old town, Chester.