Meridian-Baseline State Park is a historic preservation area covering in

Ingham County Ingham County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 284,900. The county seat is Mason. Lansing, the state capital of Michigan, is largely located within the county. Lansing is the onl ...

and Jackson County,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, containing the intersection of the Michigan meridian and the baseline used for the Michigan Survey. The

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

has two monuments that show where the two mismatched baselines meet the

principal meridian A principal meridian is a meridian used for survey control in a large region. Canada The Dominion Land Survey of Western Canada took its origin at the First (or Principal) Meridian, located at 97°27′28.41″ west of Greenwich, just west of ...

at the North Initial Point and South Initial Point.

History

Efforts to acquire the site were initiated by state and private interests in the 1960s. In the 1960s and 1970s, land was acquired and money was raised toward establishing a Museum of Surveying on the site. Those efforts were abandoned when the Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors opened a museum in

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Michigan. The most populous city in Ingham County, Michigan, Ingham County, parts of the city extend into Eaton County, Michigan, Eaton County and nort ...

, in 1981. Although the site was landlocked for many years, in 2014, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources acquired additional property allowing public access from Meridian Road near the Jackson–Ingham county line. Improvements made at the site included trail clearing and construction of a 10-car parking lot. After road signs, trail markers, and a bridge over the creek were added, the State of Michigan in conjunction with Ingham and Jackson counties, opened the new access to the park on October 12, 2015. In 2016, an additional boardwalk was completed in the wetlands near the markers.

Gallery

File:Michigan Meridian-Baseline State Park West Baseline Marker.jpg, The West Baseline-Meridian marker File:Michigan Eastern Baseline Initial Point Marker.jpg, The East Baseline-Meridian marker, in a swamp at the end of a boardwalk, the northern of the two markers. File:Michigan Meridian-Baseline State Park East Baseline Marker.jpg, The East Baseline-Meridian marker

References

External links

Meridian-Baseline State Park
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Meridian-Baseline State Park Map
Michigan Department of Natural Resources {{authority control State parks of Michigan Protected areas of Ingham County, Michigan Protected areas of Jackson County, Michigan Protected areas established in 1967 1967 establishments in Michigan