Robert Lansing (actor) reportedly took his acting surname from the state capital of Michigan. As a young actor in New York City, he was hired to join a stock company in Michigan but was told he would first have to join the Actors' Equity Association. Equity would not allow him to join as "Robert Brown" because another actor was using that name. Because the stock company was based in Lansing, this became the actor's new surname. Lansing served two years in the United States Army and was stationed in Osaka, Japan, where he worked at Armed Forces Radio. During his long career, which
Lansing, Kansas a hospital steward in the 7th Kansas Cavalry. Following the Civil War, he earned a position at the new state penitentiary in Kansas as a hospital steward. He later resigned and opened a general mercantile store, which held the post office and an apothecary business, in the area called “Town of Progress”. “Doc Lansing”, as he became known, and his friend John C. Schmidt became co-owners of of land that was platted into town lots in 1878; they named the area “Town of Lansing”. Lansing did not become an incorporated city until 1959. The Kansas State Penitentiary, later renamed the