Adrian, a city and the capital of Lenawee co., Mich., on the S. branch of the Raisin river, and on the Michigan Southern railway, 74 m. W. S. W. of Detroit; pop. in 1870, 8,438; in 1860, 6,213. The city is well built and paved, and lighted with gas. It commands the trade of an extensive grain-growing region. The stream on which it is situated furnishes good water power. The principal industrial establishments are: a car factory employing 250 men, a brass foundery employing 100, two iron founderies, two sash factories, two planing mills, two organ factories, and three flour mills. The city possesses a line monument to the memory of 77 citizens of Adrian who fell in the civil war. There are eleven churches and live public school houses. Adrian college, founded in 1859 by the Protestant Methodists, admits both sexes, and has an average attendance of about 160 students. The central union school building is one of the finest in the West. Three papers are published here, one monthly (educational), one weekly, and one daily and weekly.

The first house in Adrian, a log dwelling, was built in 1826. The village was laid out in 1828, and it was incorporated as a city in 1853.