Alma is the largest city in Gratiot County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 9,383 at the 2010 census. It was incorporated as the Village of Alma in 1872 and became a city in 1905.Alma's claims to fame include the annual Highland Festival which brings members of Scottish clans and interested onlookers together for a weekend of Highland dancing, bagpipes, kilts, and camaraderie. The Highland Festival is held each year over Memorial Day weekend. Alma College, a small liberal-arts institution of approximately 1,300 students, is located in town and focuses on multidisciplinary learning in a residential setting.Alma is the birthplace of both the world-renowned modernist architect Ralph Rapson and writer/composer/lyricist Dan Goggin.Alma was the home of Leonard Refineries, Inc., which sold gasoline and other petroleum products throughout the lower peninsula of Michigan from 1936 when the company was founded until approximately 1966.GeographyAccording to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.09sqmi, of which 5.93sqmi is land and 0.16sqmi is water.HistoryAlma was founded in 1853 by Ralph Ely. Perhaps first known for the Alma Springs Sanitarium, built and promoted in the 1880s by millionaire lumberman and capitalist Ammi Willard Wright, it achieved its greatest prominence nationally in the 1910s and 1920s as home of the Republic Motor Truck Company, briefly the largest exclusive truck manufacturer in the world. In 1953 Alma became the first place that high-octane gas, 96 octane, was produced.