Baldwin is a village in and county seat of Lake County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 863 at the 2020 census. The village is mostly located in Pleasant Plains Township with a smaller portion extending north into Webber Township

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land.

Demographics

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 1,208 people, 404 households, and 190 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 478 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 62.8% White, 29.0% African American, 0.9% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 0.7% from other races, and 6.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.1% of the population.

There were 404 households, of which 29.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 24.0% were married couples living together, 19.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.2% had a male householder with no wife present, and 53.0% were non-families. 49.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.07 and the average family size was 3.06.

The median age in the village was 36.8 years. 20.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 31.5% were from 25 to 44; 23% were from 45 to 64; and 15.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the village was 53.3% male and 46.7% female.

2000 census

As of the census

The nearby Pere Marquette River is one of America's Blue Ribbon fisheries and sportfishing is a major contributor to the local economy.

The nearby Baldwin River, a tributary of the Pere Marquette River, is the site of the first planting of German Brown Trout in the United States on April 11, 1884.

Baldwin is home of the world's largest trout statue. Located downtown Baldwin, the trout stands 25 feet tall. The village and Lake County take pride in this structure.

Private prison

The North Lake Correctional Facility is a private, for-profit, maximum security prison that was constructed in the late 1990s in Baldwin by the Wackenhut Corrections Co. (now the GEO Group). The prison was originally built to house Michigan's youth offenders, but the state withdrew its charges from the facility. The GEO group expanded the prison from 500 to 1,700 beds; by 2005 it was vacant. For a brief time it housed some inmates from California in 2011 but was soon closed again.

This contract was facilitated by the state legislature enacting a bill to support the private prison, specifically to authorize incarceration of high-security inmates at this facility. Lake Country Republican Rep. Jon Bumstead had sponsored a bill in the Michigan Legislature to raise the security rating of the North Lake facility to Michigan's highest in order to accomplish this. The Michigan Senate voted 23–14 to remove the former restrictive provision, making it legal for the GEO Group to house out-of-state prisoners of all security classifications in Baldwin. In December 2016 GEO Group told Vermont that it would not renew its contract with the state in June 2017; some 256 long-term prisoners from Vermont are being held at this prison.

In May 2019, GEO announced that it obtained a contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house illegal immigrants that were convicted of crimes while illegally in the US. On October 1, 2019, the prison officially started to accept these prisoners. It was again closed in September 2022.

In June 2025, the facility reopened as an immigration detention center for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It is the largest immigration detention center in the Midwest region.

Notable people

  • Robert F. Williams, African-American activist, lived in Baldwin

References

  • Village of Baldwin official website