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, Michigan academic square. 16 men bought plots in the nonexistent city, and upon reaching the area later that year found they had been scammed. Many in the group too disappointed to stay ended up settling around what is now metropolitan Lansing. Those who stayed quickly renamed the area "Lansing Township" in honor of their home village in New York. The settlement of fewer than 20 people would remain dormant until the winter of 1847 when the state constitution required the capital be moved from Detroit to a more central and safer location in the state's interior; many were concerned about Detroit's