From this building, the White Pigeon Land Office conducted business from 1831 to 1834 and conveyed title to much of the land in southwest Michigan, made available for settlement by the 1821 Treaty of Chicago with the Pottawatomis and other tribes. Before it closed in 1834, it conveyed title to nearly 260,000 acres in southwest Michigan, including the land where Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek now stand. White Pigeon became a frontier boom town in the 1830s because of the Land Office and its position along the Sauk Trail, now U.S. 12, then the only road available for travel southwest from Detroit. The federal government offered these lands for $1.25 per acre, and strong demand came from settlers and speculators entering Michigan after the opening of the Erie Canal. The legal record of the chain of title to property conveyed through Michigan's small land offices was critical to the state's rapid but orderly growth before it achieved statehood in 1837.