unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
Alden was first settled as early a 1868 by storekeeper F. J. Lewis in Helena Township, and he chose the name Noble as the name for the new settlement. The growing community was located along the mouth of Spencer Creek along Torch Lake, which was named after John Spencer. The community itself also became known as Spencer Creek and was given a post office under that name on June 15, 1869. In 1891, the
Pere Marquette Railway
The Pere Marquette Railway was a railroad that operated in the Great Lakes (North America), Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Canadi ...
expanded into the area, and Spencer Creek was renamed Alden after railroad official William Alden Smith, who would later become a state politician. The post office was renamed Alden on July 18, 1892.
The community of Alden was listed as a newly organized
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
for the 2010 census, meaning it now has officially defined boundaries and population statistics for the first time.
Geography
According to the
U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...
, the Alden CDP had a total area of , all land.
Demographics
As of the 2020 census, Alden has a population of 123 with 59 households and a median income of 49,063.