Alto is an
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 ...
in
Bowne Township,
Kent County, in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...
of
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, ...
.
Geography
Alto is situated on Pratt Lake Creek, at the intersection of Bancroft Avenue and 60th Street, just west of
M-50, about two miles south of exit 52 off
I-96
Interstate 96 (I-96) is an east–west Interstate Highway that runs for approximately entirely within the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. The western terminus is at an interchange with US Highway 31 (US 31) and B ...
.
Alto is situated at
on the boundary between
section
Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea
* Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents
** Section sig ...
33 of
Lowell Township and section 4 of
Bowne Township, although it lies mostly within Bowne. The Alto
ZIP code 49302 serves most of Bowne Township as well as portions of Lowell Township to the north,
Cascade Township to the northwest, and
Caledonia Township to the west. It also serves a very small area of
Campbell Township in
Ionia County around the community of
Elmdale.
49302 5-Digit ZCTA, 493 3-Digit ZCTA - Reference Map - American FactFinder
U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 census
History
Alto was founded by David N. Skidmore in 1845. A post office was established in September 1851, with Daniel C McVean as the first postmaster. Alto was also a station on the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Western Railroad
The Detroit, Lansing and Northern Railroad (DL&N) is a defunct railroad which was formed on December 27, 1876 as a reorganization of the foreclosed Detroit, Lansing and Lake Michigan Rail Road. The segment of its main line from Detroit to Lansing ...
. It was named by Lucy Skidmore McVean for being the highest point of land along the railroad between Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...
and Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
.
Education
Lowell and Caledonia Area Schools operates area public schools. Alto and Caledonia Elementary Schools serves Alto, while Lowell and Caledonia Middle School and Lowell High School serve the entire district.[ ]
Elementary school boundary descriptions here
(see text for information on Alto elementary)
See also
* Kent District Library
The Kent District Library is a public library system located in Kent County, Michigan. With twenty branch locations and an annual circulation of more than 8.2 million items ''(2016 circulation data)'', the Kent District Library is one of the lar ...
References
Unincorporated communities in Kent County, Michigan
Grand Rapids metropolitan area
Populated places established in 1845
Unincorporated communities in Michigan
{{KentCountyMI-geo-stub