The Lost Town of Banner - Or is it? Sanilac County, Michigan

Now here's a town that can be called a ghost town, but it's more of a “no-town” because there is nothing left...maybe.

According to the book Lost Towns of Eastern Michigan, the intersection of Deckerville and Chevington roads in Wheatland Township, Sanilac County was once the home of the town of Banner, sometimes called Banner Corners. It began with a blacksmith shop, and the town grew around it. Charles Burget was the blacksmith who soon became the postmaster when a post office began operating in 1891.

Now here's where it gets confusing. According to the same book, the area was destroyed during the Great Thumb Fire of 1881...ten years earlier. So that leads me to believe there were at least a few homes in the area, or maybe just a lot of farmland or empty countryside. But maybe not a settled town yet? And possibly the town of Banner grew on that previously destroyed land? If there were businesses there at one time, there is nothing there now.

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To add more confusion to this, old atlases show “Banner” as being a tad north of Chevington & Deckerville roads. Old atlases have occasionally been misleading and wrong, so what source is correct? There is a little strip of homes down the dirt road called E. Shabbona Road, north of Chevington & Deckerville Roads, which makes me wonder if that was once Banner? An old 1873 map shows that there was absolutely nothing there.

BUT...that area is on a straight strip of road with no intersection or junction. Deckerville & Chevington is a junction, where there are 'corners', therefore the alternate town name of 'Banner Corners'. What we do know is - the town of Banner did indeed exist at one point. But where, exactly? The post office shut down for good in 1905 and old atlases show a school was once at that junction.

In the 2000s, there are a smattering of old homes, including a 1925 farmhouse that is included in the gallery below. Maybe the photos can help somebody out there piece this little mystery together...