Michigan State Police

When the United States declared war against Germany in 1917, the Michigan National Guard was called to federal service. Governor Albert Sleeper feared German agents and radical labor groups would disrupt war production and initiated the legislation that allowed him to assemble the Michigan State Troops. Known also as the Michigan Cavalry or Michigan Constabulary, the troops headquartered in East Lansing under the command of Colonel Roy C. Vandercook. Reorganized as a peacetime force after the war, the state police went from horseback to motorcycles and patrol cars in the 1920s. After eighteen years, the “temporary” Michigan State Police became permanent under legislation passed in 1935.

[Back]: In 1917 the Michigan State Troops established its headquarters on a site north of here, owned by Michigan Agricultural College (MAC), present-day Michigan State University. The original compound included a barn, offices, barracks, mess halls, stables, a corral, and parade grounds. Three hundred troops constructed the buildings, provided by the St. Johns Portable Building Company. In 1929 Mapes Hall, named for Corporal Samuel Mapes who was killed by a bootlegger two years earlier, opened as an office building and barracks on the present site. In 1932 the Administration Building was completed, and headquarters operations were centralized. During the 1930s the Works Progress Administration funded construction of additional buildings on the compound.