Rothbury, Michigan
The village of Rothbury, at the southern edge of Grant
Township, like other towns was born in the lumbering era. Named for a town
in England, it was originally known as Greenwood for an early settler,
Nelson Green, through whose land the railroad, the Chicago and West
Michigan, took a right of way and established a station in 1875. Only
logging trails and a railroad tool shed marked the site of the Greenwood
Station in its early years of existence. A “real” train depot was
built in 1893.
In 1879 Greenwood Station received a name change, thanks to Mr. & Mrs.
James Arnold. She and her husband operated a boarding house and decided to
set up a post office at their business. Both Mr. & Mrs. Arnold have
been credited with coming up with the name of Rothbury. Although Greenwood
would have been a seemingly appropriate name for the post office, the
Arnolds had to choose a new name because Greenwood had been chosen
elsewhere in Michigan for a post office.. Rothbury stuck as the new name
for the settlement, which was becoming more permanent.
An interesting note: The original name of the first post office in 1876
was Malta, so named because the family in charge, named Parks, kept so
many Maltese cats.
It wasn’t until the turn of the century that Rothbury became somewhat of
a town. The town itself was situated mainly at the crossing of old
“State Road” and Winston Road, east of Oceana Drive. The old State
Road was once a stagecoach run and the mail came through on that
stagecoach until the train came in.
In those early decades of the 1900's Rothbury boasted a general store, a
hardware, a canning factory for packing apples, corn, peas, and other
produce grown in the area, a bean sorting warehouse, a creamery, a feed
mill, a school, several churches, and a blacksmith shop.
The village suffered a disastrous fire in 1941 when three businesses were
destroyed, Usiak grocery store, a vacant building and the feed mill. In
the early 1950's fire destroyed the Newman Hardware store. As a result of
those fires, Rothbury’s “business district” became situated along
the intersection of Oceana Drive and Winston Road.
The village currently has several churches, a school, a gas station, a
hardware store where the inventory goes floor-to-ceiling, a restaurant,
several other small businesses and several industries. It also boasts a
village park with access to the Hart-Montague Rail Trail, a branch of the
Shelby Library and a volunteer fire department with up-to-date facilities.
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