24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in St. Charles, MI

St. Charles is a village in Saginaw County that spreads across parts of three townships — St. Charles, Brant, and Swan Creek — with the Bad River flowing through it.

St. Charles was not named for a religious saint: settlers named it for Charles S. Kimberly, the lumberman who platted the village in 1863 and was so respected for his good works that residents dubbed him "St. Charles."

The first settler in the St. Charles area was Hiram Davis, who arrived along the Bad River in 1849, and the village was incorporated in 1869.

By 1880 St. Charles was a booming lumber town, shipping vast amounts of cut lumber by rail and down the river to Saginaw and Bay City.

When the timber ran out, a well driller named Alonzo Adams discovered coal under St. Charles, and the area became one of Michigan's largest coal-producing regions, especially from 1914 to 1920.

The last coal mine in Michigan was the Swan Creek Mine in St. Charles, which closed in 1949 and ended the state's coal-mining era.

St. Charles had a population of 1,992 at the 2020 census, living in 820 households.

St. Charles has been locally billed as the "Hub of the Saginaw Valley" and the "Gateway to the Shiawassee River Flats," reflecting its position near the Shiawassee Flats waterfowl area.

St. Charles reached its peak population of 2,276 in 1980 and has declined slowly since, losing about 3% in the 2020 census.

St. Charles covers about 2.2 square miles and has a humid continental climate with warm, humid summers and cold winters typical of Michigan's Saginaw Valley.