Kathleen Lavey

Lansing State Journal

Today, Lansing celebrates the 170th anniversary of being named Michigan's capital.

But what was then a clearing in a swamp might have had another name altogether: Aloda.

Or Pewanogowink. Or Swedenborg, Houghton or Okeema.

Much like the process that moved Michigan's capital from Detroit to a central spot — by all accounts a barely reachable wilderness in 1847 — the process of naming the city was drawn out and contentious.

"Every settlement in the state, some of them even incorporated cities, wanted to be the capital because they knew they would reap great benefits," said Valerie Marvin, Capitol historian. "There was also the prestige of being the capital."

Michigan's citizens flocked to the first Capitol in Detroit to lobby for their candidates. Plenty of places were suggested, including Ann Arbor, Jackson and even Copper Harbor. Never mind that it is at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, arguably the state's least-central location.

Lansing derives its name from Lansing, New York; settlers were brought to Michigan from there in what some historians describe as a land scam.

Scammed or not, they stayed.

A House bill to name the village Aloda passed.

Henry Schoolcraft, Indian agent for Michigan, said it meant "the heart of the country" -- kind of cool for a new state capital in the middle of the lower third of the state.

But the Senate didn't like it. Senators voted to ditch Aloda, then made a failed attempt to name the new capital Houghton. Douglass Houghton was the first state geologist who explored the Keweenaw Peninsula, pronouncing it rich with copper and ripe for mining.

"That was struck out because there was already a county in the state bearing that name on the shores of Lake Superior, where he was drowned in the fall of 1845," the Detroit Free Press reported at the time.

The Senate settled on naming the town Michigan (think about addressing mail to your legislator in "Michigan, Michigan"), but that didn't stick for long, either.

The capital finally was incorporated as the City of Lansing in 1859, Marvin said.

No doubt Schoolcraft was disappointed that the capital wound up with a name imported from New York settlers. (There also are Lansings in Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina and Kansas.)

In January 1838, Schoolcraft sent a letter to Gov. Stevens T. Mason proposing that officials pick names for geographical areas of the state before homesick new arrivals could sully the landscape with towns named after their previous homes.

"Originality in new combinations of European origin is nearly out of the question," he wrote. He advocated, instead, for using Indian names that were both "sonorous and significant."

Instead, he wrote: "I am of the opinion, that the most successful manner of introducing new names, would be to bestow them upon the soil, by legal enactment, before its settlement," he wrote.

He even attached a list of possibilities, including some we're familiar with today such as Iosco ("diluvial lands"), Tuscola ("flat lands"), Leelinaw (sic), meaning "delight in life," and Kalamo (meaning "honey woods.")

Contact Kathleen Lavey at (517) 377-1251 or klavey@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @kathleenlavey.