There was a time when the trains stopped in the small village of Galien and, according to the 1863 Atlas of Michigan, mail was delivered twice a day to the 600 people who lived here.  The train just passes by now, the mail delivery is down to one time a day, and Galien, a sleepy place with a small grocery store and a winding main street that leads towards vast emerald green pastures and farmlands, is quiet most of the year.

The old railroad station, built at the turn of the last century, still stands and though it is empty now, train aficionados might want to pause and take a look.

Welcome to Galien

For those who like tracing a town back to its roots, a stop at the Galien Township Cemetery at 18030 Adams Road is a must, for it is here that George Blakeslee, the first person to own a business in Galien, is buried. Blakeslee and his wife, Lydia, moved to Galien in 1853, the year he bought a lumber mill.  The following year, the couple, who would go on to have 11 children, opened a general store.  The civic minded Blakeslee held positions as both Justice of the Peace and U.S. Postmaster. The cemetery where Blakeslee is buried was established in 1861, though several of the gravesites date back to 1856.

First Jail in Michigan

History rolls even further back here however.  The town is named after the nearby Galien River, but for years that waterway was known as Rene Brehant de Galinee, after the French priest, mapmaker and explorer who came here in the last part of the 1600s.  For more than a century, the river's name reflected the heritage of the French explorer who traversed this small corner of Michigan before changing to Galien in 1829.