In 1888, this settlement was named in honor of Wellington R. Burt, a lumber tycoon who arranged for the Cincinnati, Saginaw and Mackinaw Railroad to run through the village. During his 1888 gubernatorial campaign, Burt donated $1,000 for construction of a township building, and Henry Youmans, also seeking office, supplied the bricks, though neither man carried the township in that year's election. Local resident Sarah A. Miller gave the land under a deed requiring that any structure built there be used for education, social and wholesome amusements, meetings, and public gatherings devoted to free thought, free speech and good government. Townspeople added labor and funds to erect the hall, which was dedicated in 1891 and went on to host vaudeville shows, weddings, local fairs, township meetings and elections. Wellington R. Burt (1831-1919), born in New York State, moved to a farm in Jackson County, Michigan, traveled after two years in college, and returned to Michigan at age twenty-six to work in a lumber camp near St. Louis. He became a lumber operator in 1858, built the sawmill community of Melbourne seven miles north of Saginaw in 1864, and saw Melbourne destroyed by fire in 1876. A Democrat, he was elected to the State Senate in 1892 and lost campaigns for governor in 1888 and for Congress in 1890. Through interests in lumber, salt, mining, railroads, foreign bonds and banking, he ranked among the wealthiest men in America by the early twentieth century.