The Elusive Michigan Village of Luce: Exactly Where Was It?

This little village seems to elude historians; they just can't decide where the lost town of Luce actually was!

Luce was a little unincorporated village that was named after Michigan's 21st governor, Cyrus G. Luce. What we DO know is, that it's in Saginaw County, Albee Township, somewhere on Burt Road. One source says it's on W. Burt Road where it crosses over Fairchild Creek. Another says it's at the intersection of Burt, West Burt and Gasper roads. But looking at Google satellite maps, it could also be at the intersection of W. Burt and Bishop roads, just down the road from the old church. That would be my best “guesstimate”.

I've looked at several Historical Saginaw County/Albee Township Atlases, but I don’t get any definite answers as to Luce’s exact location.

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None of the atlases list any towns in the entire township; they show a church, school, and a smattering of what appear to be some kind of small businesses, but no town listing.

The old wooden church that still stands just west of the Bishop & W. Burt intersection is very cool and would make for great photo ops. A little way east of the Fairchild Creek is the town graveyard, named "Ziegler Cemetery", named after one of the early landowners. The exact date of the church and who built it are unknown, but along with the cemetery just east down the road, those are all that remain of the elusive town of Luce.

There are a few homes that are scattered here and there, but whether or not they were around at the time of ‘Luce’ is unknown. There was a post office in Luce that opened for business in 1890 with William Craig as first postmaster. It shut down in 1914 but that - along with any other businesses that may have cropped up - are long gone.

Luce was definitely a postal station, but many old post office stops show up on old atlases, so why not Luce? Maybe because nobody knows for sure where it was. It lied somewhere in a one-to-three-mile radius, so I wouldn‘t think it should be hard for a Michigan historian or surveyor to dig up the info for us.