Asahel Bannister, from Jackson, purchased land here in 1881. A P.O. opened in 1883, and the Ann Arbor Railroad (A.A.) came through and opened a depot in 1884. Early promoters wanted the name to be MAPLE BEND, for its location on a big bend of the Maple River, but the P.O. department thought differently. The river was sarcastically called "gurgling Maple" by early residents because nowhere along its course did it have the speed to produce a single sound, and so was useless for developing the waterpower so important to early villages.