Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Lansing

LANSING, a city in Ingham county, Michigan, U.S., and capital of the State, is situated at the confluence of the Grand and Cedar rivers, 85 miles W.N.W. of Detroit, In 1847, when it was made the seat of government, forests covered the site. The city has broad streets, arranged in the regular rectangular system; and seven iron and three wooden bridges connect the parts of the city, which lies on both sides of the rivers above mentioned. Lansing is the seat of the State reform school, the school for the blind, and the State agricultural college. The last-named,

opened in 1857, received 240,000 acres granted by Congress for the endowment of a college of agriculture and the mechanical arts; and its income is derived from the interest of the price of part of the land, and from an annual grant from the State legislature. In 1880-81 it had a faculty of 23 members and 221 students. A graded system of public schools and a State library of 40,000 volumes are among the other educational resources of the city. Its most conspicuous building is the new State capitol, erected at a cost of one and a half million dollars. The leading manufacture is of agricultural implements; but there are extensive manufactories of carriages, waggons, wheelbarrows, and steam-engines, and four large flouring-mills. Good water-power is afforded by the Grand river, and four lines of railway offer ample shipping facilities. The city was incorporated in 1859, and in 1880 had a population of 8317.