Mount Clemens

Mount Clemens: Grand Trunk Station

Mount Clemens, city, seat (1818) of Macomb county, southeastern Michigan, U.S. The city lies along the Clinton River near its mouth on Lake St. Clair, immediately northeast of Detroit. The site’s permanent settlement dates from 1795, and Christian Clemens laid out the town in 1818. Cooperage and glassmaking were early economic activities, and since 1873 local sulfurous health springs have attracted bathers. Mount Clemens was noted for its pottery and was for most of the 20th century one of the country’s largest producers of greenhouse roses for the florist industry; by the late 1990s both industries had left the city. Manufactures now include auto parts, model trains, and food products. Selfridge Air National Guard Base, on a peninsula east of the city, has a military aviation museum with aircraft dating to the 1920s. At Grand Trunk Station, the young Thomas Alva Edison first learned telegraphy. Inc. village, 1851; city, 1879. Pop. (2000) 17,312; (2010) 16,314.