Mastodon 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 Iron 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 2000 census, the township population was 668, and by 2020 its population was 576. Mastodon was so named from the fact

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

bones were discovered when sinking a mine shaft. Mastodon may have also been named for the size of the large, iron ore body which was struck at the mine site; as "Mastodon" at that time, being a relatively new discovery, was also being used as a slang adjective, meaning large/huge.

Geography

The

Brule River The Brule River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed December 19, 2011 river in the U.S. states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Nearly, almost all of the course forms a po ...

forms the southern boundary of the township, with the Town of Florence in Florence County,

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

on the other side of the river. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the township has a total area of , of which is land and (6.47%) is water.

Communities

*The village of

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

is within the township.

References

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