Blame the cyclists from the 1890s.

Back then, counties weren’t involved in building roads, but farmers were. That was a problem for bicyclists. These roads weren’t well engineered, didn’t drain properly, and were hub deep in mud during the spring.

But the roads were good enough for horses.

And at that time, a popular sentiment was that county government had no role in building and maintaining roads.

Cyclists began the Good Roads movement and one of their first victories in Michigan (thanks to Edward Hines) was an 1893  state law that allowed the creation of county road commissions. These commissions were separate from county government and had enough autonomy so that they could ignore the naysayers in the farming community and improve the roads.

By the 1920s, according to Horatio “Good Roads” Earle, the cyclist who founded MDOT, the debate over the importance of good roads was over. Even the farmers agreed that building good roads was a good investment.

However, the road commissions that were separate from county government remained.

Unified form of government

All but Wayne and Macomb Counties operate on what’s called a “unified form of government” which is defined by state law. This law allows Michigan counties to hire a county manager to oversee departments for planning, economic development, health, environmental protection, parks, libraries, sewage, airports, garbage collection, human services, and more.

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