Best Web Design in St. Johns, MI (2026)

Web Design for St. Johns, Michigan

St. Johns is a Clinton County seat of about 7,700 people that smells like chewing gum for two weeks every August, when the mint harvest comes off the black muck soil that once supplied close to 90 percent of the world's mint oil. It was laid out as a railroad stop in 1853 and named for a state auditor who scouted the site, and it still runs on agriculture: mint, apples, and a liquid-fertilizer company headquartered here. The town produced an advertising legend, an anarchist essayist, and the two brothers who turned their small-town childhood into a Disney cartoon.

AppWT serves St. Johns and the surrounding Michigan area from Livonia, Michigan.

About St. Johns

Also known as. Mint Capital of the World. Mint City U.S.A. Michigan's Mint Capital. S.J.

History. The town was conceived in late 1853 as a station on the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway. The site was forest in Bingham Township; it was cleared and settled by the middle of 1854. It was named for Michigan Auditor-General John Swegles, who took part in scouting the railway station site. The settlement incorporated as a village on October 15, 1857 and as a city in 1904. The county seat moved from DeWitt to St. Johns in December 1857, after St. Johns residents offered a 1.5-acre building site and raised $2,000 toward the cost of the move. County offices first occupied Plumstead Hall at Clinton Avenue and Walker Street. In January 1869 supervisors proposed a $25,000 courthouse, approved by taxpayers 1,734 to 1,170. The design, by Oliver Hidden, was modeled on Bay City's courthouse; the cornerstone was laid in fall 1869. Lightning struck the dome on March 15, 1871, and the final cost reached $36,000. The building served roughly a century before a replacement courthouse was dedicated on June 22, 2000. Mint farming reached St. Johns from the St. Joseph and Kalamazoo areas in the 1800s and took hold in the county's black muck soils, with the first commercial mint farm and still operating in the early 1910s. The Crosby Mint Farm was established in 1912 by J.E. Crosby Sr., who bought the land after losing a dairy farm in Dayton, Ohio to a flood. The first Mint Festival was held in 1935. It was not continuous; the modern festival was revived in 1985 and has run every year since. Andrew Kehoe, the perpetrator of the 1927 Bath School Disaster, was from St. Johns.

Local economy. Mint is the defining crop. The organic muck soil, amended to hold water and shelter the plants through hard winters and wind, made the region ideal, and Clinton County still ranks first in Michigan for total mint production. At the turn of the 20th century, roughly 90 percent of the world's mint oil came from the belt running from St. Johns to Michigan's southwest corner, driven heavily by demand from chewing gum makers such as Wrigley. The Crosby Mint Farm, established 1912, is described as the oldest continuously family-operated mint farm in the United States, now run by fourth-generation distiller James "Peppermint Jim" Crosby. Other long-standing mint families include the Livingstons, the Henning Brothers, the Irrers and the Kus family. The farm publicly fought foreclosure and an eviction order in 2009. AgroLiquid, a liquid crop-nutrition company, keeps its world headquarters in St. Johns on M-21, including a conference center and the IQhub agriculture education facility. University of Michigan Health-Sparrow Clinton is a Joint Commission-accredited critical access hospital with a certified Level IV trauma center and a swing bed program. University of Michigan Health acquired Sparrow Health on April 1, 2023. Uncle John's Cider Mill on US-127 is a fifth-generation family farm running a cider mill, bakery, hard cidery and winery, and is a major fall tourism draw.

Culture and community. The St. Johns Mint Festival, held the second weekend of August since 1985, long staged at the Clinton County Fairgrounds and moved downtown in 2026. It draws over 75,000 people for arts and crafts, a flea market, antiques and collectibles, a car show, basketball tournaments, children's activities, and a parade with a Mint Queen. The mint harvest itself is a cultural event: cutting and distilling in mid-to-late August fills the air across the whole area with the smell of the crop. Uncle John's Cider Mill's autumn season, with cider, donuts, hard cider and wine, is a regional ritual for mid-Michigan families. The Wilson Center Auditorium hosts rock concerts and theatrical productions. A downtown social district with public murals, including Tracie Davis's "Eyes are Windows to the Soul." Long-running local businesses give downtown its character: Woodbury's Flower Shop, in operation since 1911 under five generations, plus newer shops like Oh Mi Organics (allergen-free chocolate, mint chocolates, minty cold brew) and The Minty Mitten, carrying goods from more than 80 Michigan vendors.

What makes St. Johns distinct. From 2018 the Nordic Pineapple flew a Norwegian flag honoring co-owner Kjersten Offenbecker's Norway-born grandfather. In 2020 enough passersby mistook the red flag with its blue-and-white cross for a Confederate battle flag, and confronted the owners, that the couple, who are the parents of two Black children, took it down and replaced it with a Norwegian vimpel pennant. The story went national. The town is named after a man who scouted a railroad site here and then, as far as the record shows, did not live in it. Andrew Kehoe, who committed the deadliest school massacre in American history at Bath in 1927, came from St. Johns. "Big City Greens" is built on the Houghton brothers' departure from St. Johns for Detroit, Florida and Los Angeles. Cricket Green is based on and voiced by co-creator Chris Houghton, and many of the characters come from real family members and townspeople. The soil that made the mint boom possible is muck, essentially drained ancient wetland, deliberately worked to hold water and protect a plant that would not otherwise survive Michigan winters. The modern Mint Festival launched in 1985, exactly 50 years after the town's first one in 1935. One family, the Crosbys, has distilled mint on the same ground for more than 110 years, which is why the farm is repeatedly cited as the country's oldest continuously family-run mint operation.

St. Johns Landmarks and Local Life

• Clinton County Courthouse - The courthouse at 100 East State Street was dedicated on June 22, 2000, and its cupola holds the refurbished clockworks and bell from the 1872 courthouse.
• Clinton Northern Railway Museum - This nonprofit railway museum at 107 East Railroad Street occupies the historic Grand Trunk Depot and displays early 1900s railcars, railroad artifacts and a model train layout.
• IQhub at AgroLiquid - A 9,500 square foot agriculture education center inside AgroLiquid's headquarters, with exhibits tracing farming from pre-colonial times to the present and a Kids Korner area.
• Giles J. Gibbs Building - A commercial building at 12 North Clinton Avenue known as the Sugar Bowl, put up by grocer Giles J. Gibbs in 1867 and later a confectionery bought in 1916 by Greek immigrant Nick Pappas; the building entered the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
• Paine-Gillam-Scott Museum - Home of the Clinton County Historical Society, built in 1858 and holding the distinction of being the oldest brick residence in the city.
• Crosby Mint Farm - Established by J. E. Crosby in 1912 and described as the oldest continuously family operated mint farm in the United States, working the rich muck soil that suits mint so well here.
• Motz County Park - A 42 acre Clinton County park at 4630 North DeWitt Road with 15 acres of water, a sand beach and swimming area, a fishing pier and a covered pavilion.
• Maple River State Game Area - About 9,252 acres of wetland, forest and grassland along the Maple River across Clinton, Gratiot and Ionia counties, with St. Johns as the nearest city.

St. Johns at a Glance

U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2023.

• Median household income: About $63,030
• Housing: About 68% of occupied housing units are owner-occupied
• Housing: About 69% of housing units are single-family detached homes

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