Alonzo Proctor Tollhouse (1851) SR

Alonzo and Sarah Proctor, circa 1880. Photo Credit: Samuel W. Durant, History of Ingham and Eaton Counties, Michigan, p. 288.

Asa Proctor (1784–1870) settled in the area in 1847, purchasing 120 acres on the west side of Park Lake Road where the “Grand River Road” cut across the southwest corner of his land. In 1851 the Lansing–Howell Plank Road turned it into a toll road, and Proctor was commissioned to operate one of its seven tollgates. Tollhouse № 2 stood opposite the Proctor farm on the south side of the plank road, approximately at the southeast corner of Grand River and Dawn Avenues. Asa Proctor tended the tollgate for seven years before handing its operation to the fourth of his nine children, the man for whom the tollhouse is today named, Alonzo G. Proctor.[Beers, p. 51. Towar, p. 25. Durant, pp. 288–289]

Alonzo Proctor (1815–1889) and his wife Sarah Guggins Proctor (1830–1897) raised several children the oldest of whom, Asa M. Proctor (1848–1908) married Hannah Burcham in 1872. They appear to have retained their toll road commission until the road reverted to public use some time in the 1880s. In 1907 the tollhouse was moved from its original location to land owned by a son of Alonzo and Sarah, Vernal A. Proctor (1869–1945). Standing at 564 N. Hagadorn Road, on the east side of the street between Snyder Road and Melrose Avenue, it was used as a residence for decades.[Chadwick, p. 1. Miller, p. 12]

Tollhouse at its location on Hagadorn Road, around the time of its listing on the State Register in 1973. Photo Credit: Friends of Historic Meridian, reprinted in Miller, p. 12.

As the sole remaining plank road tollhouse in Michigan, the building was listed on the State Register of Historic Places on March 14, 1973, and moved soon afterward to the Meridian Historical Village in Central Park, Okemos. It has been restored to its original appearance and placed in an interpretive setting complete with a gate and a placard of toll rates. The Proctor family gravesite stands in Riverside Cemetery, less than half a mile east of the original tollhouse site, with a commanding view of Grand River Avenue and the old plank road.

Alonzo Proctor Tollhouse, December 2004. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.