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,
Abraham Lansing Abraham Lansing Abraham Lansing (February 27, 1835 – October 4, 1899) was an American lawyer and politician. Abraham Lansing was born in Albany, Albany County, New York. He was the son of Christopher Yates Lansing (1796–1872) and Caroline Mary (née Thomas) Lansing (1805–1845). Lansing was a grandson of state Treasurer Abraham G. Lansing, grand-nephew of Chancellor John Lansing, Jr., and nephew of Gerrit Y. Lansing. Lansing attended The Albany Academy, graduated from Williams College with an A.B. in 1855, and was a member of The Kappa Alpha Society. He read law with his father, graduated from Albany Law School in