Paris, Michigan

Green Charter Township is a charter township of Mecosta County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the township population was 3,209. The township was organized in 1858, before Mecosta County was detached from Newaygo County.Communities Paris is an unincorporated community and the largest settlement within the township at on the Muskegon River about north of Big Rapids. John Parish is considered the "father" of the village, having arrived in the 1850s and then platted the village in 1865. It was at first named Parish after him, but the name later became Paris. A fire on May 26, 1879 destroyed a large portion of the village, including records of Green Township. The Paris ZIP code, 49338, serves the northwest portion of Green Township. Paris Park, north of town, was the site of the second fish hatchery in the state of Michigan. The Paris Fish Hatchery opened in 1881, and from 1913 to 1938, salmon and brown trout fingerlings were shipped by rail baggage cars in milk cans painted a distinctive red. The Works Progress Administration renovated and expanded the facility in the mid-1930s. The hatchery operated until 1964, and in 1972 was acquired by the Mecosta County Park Commission and refurbished as a park that reopened in July 1976. In 1980, students from the Mecosta-Osceola Career Center in Big Rapids built a 20ft replica of the Eiffel Tower out of metal frames from WPA workers' beds that had been stored in barns.