One of the first Michigan State Police posts in the state was established on this site in 1917. Some of the original members of the Michigan State Police were stationed in the army barracks building when the entire statewide force consisted of only fifty men. They were first called Michigan State Troops. During Prohibition, a River Patrol was established here to block the smuggling of liquor from Canada. In 1930, the South Rockwood Detachment, Lt. Orva Jackson, Cmmdr., was moved to Rockwood, one mile north, into the first standardized State Police post erected in Michigan.