Marshall's Governor's Mansion

In the small city of Marshall, Michigan, there is a house called the Governor's Mansion, even though no governor ever lived there. State senator James Wright Gordon built it in eighteen thirty-nine directly across from where he expected the Michigan state capitol to rise. He had been lobbying hard to make Marshall the permanent capital, and he was so confident the designation was coming that he built this Greek Revival home in anticipation.

He even became lieutenant governor in eighteen forty, and acting governor in eighteen forty-one. Then in eighteen forty-seven the state legislature, wanting to break a deadlock between rival cities, placed the capital instead in a tiny settlement on the Red Cedar River with just eight registered voters. That settlement was renamed Lansing.

Gordon's mansion became a private home, passed through several families, and was donated to the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in nineteen sixty-seven. It now operates as a museum, a monument to the capital that never arrived.