Brothers Joseph and James Gage immigrated from Canada in 1860, and Joseph filed a homestead claim in Elmwood Township. In 1869, Joseph built a store and mill on his land, and two years later he platted the village of Gagetown where five roads met. A Methodist Protestant class was organized in 1878, and the next year Father Clement Krebs established St. Agatha’s Parish, the first Catholic Church in Tuscola County. In 1882, the Pontiac, Oxford and Northern Railroad reached Gagetown carrying daily mail and passengers, and the village incorporated that same year with Father Krebs as its first president. Members of the first town council included John Williams, Joseph Gage, Eliphatel Robertson, John Wilson, George Perkins, and Louis Lenhard. Gagetown grew quickly in the late nineteenth century after the railroad arrived. In 1890, Preston Purdy and his son James opened the State Savings Bank of Gagetown. The Opera House debuted in 1907 with electricity and seating for 315 people. St. Agatha’s dedicated its new brick church in 1917. From 1920 to 1922, James Purdy built an octagon shaped barn on his farm that became the Thumb Octagon Barn Agricultural Museum, located one mile east of town. Fire damaged Gagetown in 1925, and departments from seven towns fought the fire for six hours in high winds before containing it. Eighteen buildings were lost and many businesses never rebuilt. In 2012, part of the former State Savings Bank was converted into the Village Hall.