Richland 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 Montcalm 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, ...

. The population was 2,646 at the 2020 census, down from 2,778 in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Geography

The township is in the northeast corner of Montcalm County, bordered to the north by

Isabella County Isabella County is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 64,394. Its county seat is Mount Pleasant. The area was known as ''Ojibiway Besse'', meaning "the place of the Ojibwa". Isabella Coun ...

and to the east by Gratiot County. State highway M-46 crosses the township, leading west to Edmore and east to

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. Stanton, the Montcalm

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 southwest. 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 ...

, Richland Township has a total area of , of which are land and , or 1.56%, are water. The township is drained by the Pine River, which winds across the center of the township and ultimately flows east to the Chippewa River, part of the

Saginaw River The Saginaw River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 7, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is formed by the confluence of the Tittabawassee River, ...

watershed leading to

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French ex ...

Communities

* Vestaburg 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 the southern part of the township at The community was founded by George W. O'Donnell in 1874, who named it after his wife, Vesta Burgess O'Donnell. He recorded a

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

in 1875 and became the first postmaster on September 14, 1875. The office closed on November 30, 1877, but re-opened on January 2, 1878. The Vestaburg post office, with ZIP code 48891, serves most of Richland Township, as well as a small portion of Home Township to the west, as well as portions of townships to the south and west.ZCTA Reference Map for 48891
, U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 census

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 2,868 people, 1,052 households, and 792 families residing in the township. The population density was . There were 1,245 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the township was 98.15%

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 ...

, 0.24%

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 ...

, 0.42% Native American, 0.24% Asian, 0.14% from other races, and 0.80% 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 1.81% of the population. There were 1,052 households, out of which 37.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.6% 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, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.7% were non-families. 20.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.71 and the average family size was 3.08. In the township the population was spread out, with 29.0% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 28.1% from 25 to 44, 24.4% from 45 to 64, and 11.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 101.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.9 males. The median income for a household in the township was $34,847, and the median income for a family was $38,913. Males had a median income of $30,028 versus $20,871 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 $14,889. About 6.5% of families and 10.5% 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 10.5% of those under age 18 and 14.5% of those age 65 or over.

References

External links

* {{authority control Townships in Montcalm County, Michigan Townships in Michigan