[3] Cass County is included in the South Bend–Mishawaka, IN-MI, Metropolitan Statistical Area which has a total population of 316,663 and is considered part of the Michiana region.

[1] Cass County was not as heavily forested and had more fertile prairie land than other nearby areas of Michigan.

During early settlement, it attracted numerous settlers who wanted to farm and grew more rapidly in population.

As early as 1830, a carding mill was started in the county on Dowagiac Creek, a branch of the St. Joseph River.

Although the Sauk Trail (Chicago Road) passed through the southern part of the county, early settlement did not come primarily from eastern Michigan.

Putnam, who had lived in Massachusetts and New York, migrated to Cass from Erie County, Ohio, by way of Fort Wayne.

Free and refugee blacks found Cass County to be a haven, some with mixed Native ancestry, especially Saponi, Lumbee, and Pamunkey.

They were "surrounded by crowds of angry farmers armed with clubs, scythes, and other farm implements", resisting their attempt.

Biased toward slaveholders and slavecatchers, it required little documentation and put free blacks at risk for capture and sale into slavery.

Many in the North resisted the law, especially in abolitionist strongholds, and it increased tensions contributing to the Civil War.

[10] One established Underground Railroad route ran from Niles through Cassopolis, Schoolcraft, Climax, and Battle Creek, and thence along the old Territorial Road.

The county government operates the jail, maintains rural roads, operates the major local courts, keeps files of deeds and mortgages, maintains vital records, administers public health regulations, and participates with the state in the provision of welfare and other social services.

The elected county board of commissioners controls the budget but has only limited authority to make laws or ordinances.

In Michigan, most local government functions — police and fire, building and zoning, tax assessment, street maintenance, etc.