Midland, MI

Midland is a central Michigan city and the county seat of Midland County, with a population a little over forty thousand. Its identity is strongly tied to Dow Chemical Company, founded in Midland by Herbert Henry Dow in 1897 and still headquartered there. The city began earlier as a fur trading post connected to the American Fur Company. Today Midland pairs its corporate and science-industry base with cultural institutions such as the Midland Center for the Arts, giving it more civic depth than a typical small industrial city.