10 Fun Facts About Lansing You Might Not Know

Here's what I know about Lansing, Michigan. I know it's the state capital of Michigan. I know that we are home to the Lansing Lugnuts the high affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. I know that I miss the Commonground Music Festival, ya know, the one from back in the day that went a whole week with every genre of music?

Other things I know about Lansing are that we have some good food in town and the surrounding mid Michigan area. Lansing also welcomes Fido to come dine with you.

Scarf Down Ribs at Lansing's 10 Favorite Rib Establishments

Lansing's Best Ice Cream/Fro Yo

Dog Friendly Restaurants in Lansing 

I don't care about things like how many bricks are laid on Washington in downtown Lansing? How long did it take to lay the road down? Well maybe now that I am typing that out I might be curious, I'll save that for another day.

I do like the statement "knowledge is power". Let us take a look at some fun, maybe bizarre, odd, peculiar, inspiring or mind blowing facts about Lansing, Michigan from movoto.

10 Fun Facts About Lansing, Michigan

The highest-ranking Okinawan master of martial arts Beikoku Shido-kan Karate-do calls Lansing home. His name is Seikichi Iha.

Lansing was chosen to be the state capital not by reputation, but out of frustration. In 1847 the state constitution required that the capital be moved from Detroit, and it was such a process deciding which city to pick instead that Lansing was finally chosen in order to end it.

Lansing was the first city in the country to establish an organization dedicated to women's history: the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame.

Sadly this is now closed, however, Moving Women Forward is doing amazing things.

One of the largest family-owned pet stores in the state exists right in Lansing. It's called Preuss Pets. It's the size of a large department store at 22,000 square feet, with shopping space for all sorts of critters. Part of the store feels like you're walking through a rainforest.

The largest bell in MSU's Beaumont Tower weighs a whopping 2.5 tons.

In 2012 The Atlantic magazine ranked the Lansing area 16th on its list of "Brainiest Cities in America."

Out of all the states in the U.S. Lansing is the only state capital that doesn't happen to be the county seat. The county seat of Ingham County is actually Mason, Michigan.

Lansing's Beal Botanical Garden is the oldest continuously operating botanical garden in the country, and holds more than 5,000 species of plants.

If it wasn't for Abraham Lincoln and the Morrill Act of 1862, Lansing's Michigan State University might never have been the same. The university was, in fact, one of the first federal land-grant institutions established after the Morrill Act.

MSU was supposed to see its first graduating class (of seven students) in 1861, but the students were excused just a few months before graduation so they could join the Union Army in the Civil War.