Branch Township is a

civil township A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a County (United States), county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England town, Ne ...

of Mason 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 ...

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, ...

. As of the 2020 census, the township population was 1,405. Branch Township was named after

Branch County, Michigan Branch County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 44,862. The county seat is Coldwater. One of the " cabinet counties", it was named for John Branch, U.S. Secretary of the Navy under Presiden ...

Communities

Branch A branch, also called a ramus in botany, is a stem that grows off from another stem, or when structures like veins in leaves are divided into smaller veins. History and etymology In Old English, there are numerous words for branch, includ ...

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 ...

on US 10 on the boundary between

Mason Mason may refer to: Occupations * Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a worker who lays bricks to assist in brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces * Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cutti ...

and

Lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

counties. The Branch ZIP code 49402 serves the eastern part of Branch Township. * Tallman is an unincorporated community in the north of the township. The community was established in 1879 Horace and Marshall F. Butters. A post office in the community was in operation from 1880 to 1887, from 1888 to 1891, and from 1897 to 1953. *Walhalla is a small unincorporated community located on US 10 at between

Baldwin Baldwin may refer to: People * Baldwin (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Places Canada * Baldwin, York Regional Municipality, Ontario * Baldwin, Ontario, in Sudbury District * Baldwin's Mills, ...

and Ludington. Walhalla is slightly more than one mile north of the

Pere Marquette River The Pere Marquette River is a river in Michigan in the United States. The main stream of this river is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 21, 2011 running fr ...

. Walhalla was the home office to the

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, was a lesbian feminist women's music festival held annually from 1976 to 2015 in Oceana County, Michigan, on privately owned woodland near Hart Township referred to a ...

Geography

The township is in eastern Mason County and is bordered to the east by Lake County. Ludington, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

, is to the west by US 10. 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 ...

, Branch Township has a total area of , of which are land and , or 1.61%, are water. The

, a tributary of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

, flows east to west across the south-central part of the township.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 1,181 people, 506 households, and 332 families residing in the township. The population density was . There were 921 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the township was 97.88%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.34%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.68% Native American, 0.25% Asian, 0.25% from other races, and 0.59% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 2.37% of the population. There were 506 households, out of which 25.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.0% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 8.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.2% were non-families. 27.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.79. In the township the population was spread out, with 21.4% under the age of 18, 6.4% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 28.7% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.8 males. The median income for a household in the township was $27,593, and the median income for a family was $32,500. Males had a median income of $27,159 versus $20,921 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the township was $15,659. About 6.8% of families and 9.9% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 17.1% of those under age 18 and 6.3% of those age 65 or over.

References

{{authority control Townships in Mason County, Michigan Townships in Michigan