East Lansing, Michigan travel between Detroit and Lansing, which cut right through what is now East Lansing. The toll road was finished in 1853, and included seven tollhouses between Lansing and Howell. Michigan State University was founded in 1855 and established in what is now East Lansing in 1857. For the first four decades, the students and faculty lived almost entirely on the college campus. A few commuted from Lansing, and that number increased when a streetcar line was built in the 1890s, but there were few places to live in the then-rural area surrounding the campus. That started to change in 1887,
East Lansing High School dedicated in September 2005. On June 21, 2017, Andrew Wells (ELHS class of 1976) was named principal, replacing Colby Fletcher. The school's official mascot is the Trojan and its colors are navy blue and white. The athletic teams compete as members of the Capital Area Activities Conference. The school district that is now East Lansing Public Schools was established in 1900, seven years before the city of East Lansing itself. All grade levels were taught in the original Central School, which was built in 1901. When that building burned down in 1916, classes were held in the old Peoples Church