Clarkston, Michigan: The Clark Brothers' Town

Clarkston began with a squatter. Linus Jacox arrived from New York in eighteen thirty and built a rough cedar-pole shelter in the Oakland County forest. A few years later Butler Holcomb put up a proper house and a sawmill.

Then the Clark brothers arrived and platted the village, and it was named Clarkston in their honor. Today Clarkston is one of the smallest cities in Michigan by area, about half a square mile, entirely surrounded by Independence Township.