Disco, Michigan was a village in what is now Shelby Charter Township, Michigan. Disco was located at the intersection of Whiskey Road (now 24 Mile Road) and Van Dyke Road. It was platted in 1849. It was first populated by European settlers, mainly from New York State around 1830. Their homesteads were near the common corner of sections 9, 10, 15 and 16 of Shelby Township, then referred to as the "Utica Plains" vicinity. By coincidence, the offices and township hall of the Charter Township of Shelby are now located in the Southeast quadrant of this same roadway intersection. Disco got its name from two possible origins: from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word "Discare", meaning 'to learn'; or as a contraction of

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. Disco never incorporated, although the local high school, the "Disco Academy" gained some recognition and a post office operated named Disco from May 5, 1854, until July 31, 1906. Disco had two general stores, wagon shops,

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

shops, a harness shop, a paint shop, and a hotel named The Halfway House - as the village was at the midpoint of the Concord Coach Line running between

Royal Oak, Michigan Royal Oak is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Royal Oak is about north of Detroit's city limits. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 57,236. Royal Oak is located along t ...

and

Almont, Michigan Almont is a village in Almont Township, Lapeer County, Michigan. Its population was 2,846 at the 2020 census. History Almont was first settled in 1828 by James Deneen. It received a post office in 1835 named Bristol, for Oliver Bristol, the seco ...

. Industries included a

feed mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

cider mill A cider mill, also known as a cidery, is the location and equipment used to crush apples into apple juice for use in making apple cider, hard cider, applejack, apple wine, pectin and other products derived from apples. More specifically, it r ...

, wooden bowl mill, and a planing mill. The Disco Methodist Church was established by Orestes Millerd, who settled in the area around 1827. The Mennonite Church, built in the late 1890s, was used as a house of worship until the early 1930s. In 1988 the building was moved, and reconstructed into a home near its original site. Today, only a small number of old homes and a namesake location on county road maps are all that remain of this early Shelby Township historic village.
See also: "The Lost Village of Disco" on the Shelby Township Historical Society website.Leeson, History of Macomb County: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection 1874-1912

References

{{Macomb County, Michigan Populated places established in 1849 History of Michigan Ghost towns in Michigan Former populated places in Macomb County, Michigan 1849 establishments in Michigan