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Metro Detroit Macomb County City
Macomb's county seat and old mineral-bath town, where even Babe Ruth came to soak
01 / Why it matters
Mount Clemens has been Macomb County's seat since 1818, sitting on the Clinton River and almost completely surrounded by Clinton Township. It's a small city, but a lot of county business happens here, and downtown is anchored by the 1933 Art Deco Macomb County Building.
For a century, from 1873 to 1974, the baths paid the bills: mineral springs bubbled up under town, and at the peak 11 bathhouses and a string of hotels waited on visitors. Clark Gable, Mae West, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, William Randolph Hearst and the Vanderbilts all came here to soak.
The train depot has its own legend: in August 1862, 15-year-old Thomas Edison pulled a three-year-old boy out of the path of a train here, and the grateful father, the station agent, taught him telegraphy. The 1859 depot now houses the Michigan Transit Museum.
02 / Known for
The mineral baths: the first bathhouse, “The Original,” opened in 1873, and bath tourism was the city's biggest industry until 1974.
Thomas Edison learned telegraphy at the Grand Trunk depot here in 1862.
Macomb County's seat since 1818, with downtown anchored by the 1933 Art Deco Macomb County Building.
The Anton Art Center, housed in the 1904 Neoclassical Carnegie library and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.
The Emerald Theatre building, opened in 1921 as the Macomb Theatre movie palace and vaudeville house, designed by C. Howard Crane of Detroit's Fox Theatre fame.
The Mount Clemens Sugar Company turned sugar beets into refined sugar from about 1898 to 1950.
03 / What’s on
Oct 5, 2026, 6:00 PMMount Clemens Public Library · Jeremy Dimick, Director of Collections & Curatorial at the Detroit Historical Society, gives a talk on the first century of pro hockey in Detroit on Monday, October 5, at 6 p.m. at Mount Clemens Public Library in Mount Clemens. Hear how Detroit became Hockeytown; admission is free.
04 / Places
Escapology Mt. Clemens82 Macomb Pl, Mount Clemens, MI 4804305 / What to do
The 1859 Grand Trunk depot where Edison learned telegraphy, now a museum with vintage locomotives and cars, open Sundays 1 to 4 p.m. year-round, with occasional short train rides toward Selfridge.
Official site ↗A free gallery in the old Carnegie library on Macomb Place, with rotating exhibitions, art classes and a gift shop of local work, open Tuesday through Saturday.
Official site ↗The county seat's walkable downtown by the Clinton River, with its own events calendar.
Official site ↗06 / History
Christian Clemens surveys the area; he settles here in 1799.
On March 11 Mount Clemens becomes the Macomb County seat, the same year it gets its name.
In the fall the Grand Trunk Western opens its Port Huron to Detroit line, with a depot in Mount Clemens.
The first bathhouse opens, launching the mineral-bath era.
Mount Clemens incorporates as a city.
The Carnegie-funded public library, today's Anton Art Center, is built.
07 / Born here
08 / People
Population and area are Census Bureau figures (Mount Clemens city).
Change since 2020, per the Census Bureau estimate: −1.8 percent.
