County Past
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Oceana County, Michigan

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
8historic places
—earliest paper
1831formed
26,659pop. 2020
50cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 8 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1972. Most listings are in or near Pentwater, Mears, Crystal Valley.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Michigan is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Oceana titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

4 of 8 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

8 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Dumaw Creek SitePentwaterSite1972
Gay, Jared H., HouseCrystal ValleyBuilding1989
Green Quarry SiteMearsSite1972
Hart Downtown Historic DistrictHartDistrict2015
Little Sable Point Light StationGolden TownshipStructure1984
Mears, Charles, Silver Lake BoardinghouseMearsBuilding1986
Navigation Structures at Pentwater HarborPentwaterStructure2001
US 31-Pentwater River BridgeWeare TownshipStructure1999

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Oceana was formed in 1831 (1831-03-02) from Michilimackinac.

OCEANA created by Michigan Territory from MICHILIMACKINAC (now MACKINAC).

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Oceana County population from 1840 to 2020 (Census historical series).

27k14k3001840188019201930196020002020
18401860188019001920194019501960198020002020
4961,81611,69916,64415,60114,81216,10516,54722,00226,87326,659

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

50 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 50 of 50 listed
NameLatLon
Abson Cemetery43.71334-86.07923
Assumption Cemetery43.50611-86.33812
Carpenter Cemetery43.69923-86.14349
Christ the King Catholic Cemetery43.57388-86.06333
Colfax Cemetery43.75806-86.07284
Cranston Cemetery43.54444-86.39583
Eagles Cemetery43.543-86.33441
Elbridge Township Cemetery43.68497-86.21845
Ferry Township South Cemetery43.57168-86.23951
First Shelby Cemetery (historical)43.61667-86.37083
Flower Creek Cemetery43.48778-86.44757
Gale Cemetery43.62743-86.1255
Gardner Cemetery43.60234-86.46331
Genereau Cemetery43.7011-86.25903
Goodrich Cemetery43.65723-86.14034
Greenwood Cemetery43.50417-86.10478
Hart Cemetery43.70221-86.37628
Indian Cemetery43.73749-86.21749
Indian Cemetery43.71232-86.19739
Indian Cemetery43.71444-86.20333
Lever Cemetery43.72597-86.36951
Little Point Sable CemeteryNoneNone
Mears Cemetery43.68096-86.43161
Mennonite Cemetery43.60832-86.31861
Mount Calvary Cemetery43.74776-86.33786
Mount Hope Cemetery43.61433-86.35177
Mount Ulysses Cemetery43.77937-86.23224
New Era Cemetery43.56055-86.33555
North Ferry Cemetery43.62806-86.19284
North Hart Cemetery43.70779-86.36239
North Weare Cemetery43.80152-86.36364
Oak Grove Cemetery43.49333-86.3609
Oceana Center Cemetery43.64167-86.27784
Otto Cemetery43.55501-86.2084
Peace Cemetery43.52055-86.41694
Pentwater Township Cemetery43.79159-86.42736
Pine Grove Cemetery43.53082-86.46833
Randall Cemetery43.69871-86.29788
Raul Cemetery (historical)43.63556-86.19722
Round Lake Cemetery43.69689-86.43077
Saint John's Catholic Cemetery43.52194-86.43305
Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery43.71115-86.19732
Saint Stephen's Lutheran Cemetery43.60335-86.4628
Smith Corners Cemetery43.75738-86.35813
South Hart Cemetery43.66375-86.35886
Stony Lake Cemetery43.56166-86.49646
Trinity Lutheran Cemetery43.55822-86.41913
Walkerville Cemetery43.71524-86.13756
West Hesperia Cemetery43.57305-86.06333
Woodward Cemetery43.52638-86.13972

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Oceana County, Michigan

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.