1837: Michigan becomes a state

On January 26, 1837, President Andrew Jackson signed the bill making Michigan the nation's twenty-sixth state. The enactment ended a struggle that began over two years earlier when twenty-three-year-old acting Territorial Governor Stevens T. Mason declared that Michigan had a "right" to be a state, despite Congress's refusal to endorse a state constitutional convention. The struggle had focused on the ownership of a 500-square-mile stretch of land called the Toledo Strip. Ohioans and Michiganians had traded hostile words and then mobilized their militias to assert their claims. While Congress was debating the matter, Michiganians wrote a state constitution with several farsighted features, including a comprehensive public education system under a state superintendent. President Jackson's signature also finalized Michigan's acceptance of a congressional proposal giving Toledo to Ohio and the wilderness of the western Upper Peninsula to Michigan.

— Michigan.gov

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