Coloma, Michigan

The settlement here began in eighteen thirty-four as a shingle-manufacturing operation and was known informally as Dickerville. When the community got around to establishing a proper post office, residents felt the name lacked respectability. According to local tradition, a man named Squire Gilson recalled a beautiful California town he had visited during his westward travels: Coloma, the settlement near Sutter's Mill where gold was first discovered in eighteen forty-eight.

The Michigan community adopted that name, was platted in the mid eighteen hundreds, incorporated as a village in eighteen ninety-three, and became a city in nineteen forty-one. Today Coloma lies within the Lake Michigan Shore wine region, still part of the Fruit Belt that has defined this corner of Berrien County for nearly two centuries.