The Michigan Town That Was Once Called “Locust Corners”
The unassuming village of Pittsford lies in Hillsdale County on M-34, right on the border of the townships of Jefferson and Pittsford.
In 1833, Hiram Kidler arrived in the area and became the first settler. The new settlement was dubbed ‘Locust Corners’. No information is forthcoming on why it was given that name; you would think it was named after an amount of locusts in the area destroying the fields, but if that was the case, why wouldn’t they move somewhere else?
In September 1840, the village was renamed Pittsford thanks to Alpheus Pratt. He obviously wasn’t impressed with the moniker “Locust Corners” so when a post office opened up, he changed the name after his hometown of Pittsford, New York.
According to Wikipedia, the post office was “later relocated to the western part of Pittsford Township and renamed Sparta on January 4, 1846. In turn, the nearby Keene post office was transferred and renamed Pittsford on January 30, 1846.”
The town was a railroad stop on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern line "Old Road" that ran between Adrian and Hillsdale. Even with the trains coming through, Pittsford did not become a major town, but it’s still holding its own well into the 2020s. The railroad has been ripped out.