Meridian-Baseline State Park

This unique and beautiful park – preserved for its historic value – designates the spot where all township, range and section measurements begin for the entire state. Every property description is referenced from these points.

The park features a 1.4-mile, out-and-back trail where visitors can see two monuments (or markers) that are the basis for all land surveys in Michigan and parts of Ohio.

Michigan’s north-south principal meridian was established in the summer of 1815 by a surveyor named Benjamin Hough. The west boundary of the 1807 Treaty of Detroit was selected as the line for the Michigan principal meridian. Starting at the existing baseline passing westward from Youngstown through Defiance, Ohio, he ran his line straight north into southern Michigan.

Surveys to establish Michigan’s bisecting baseline began in 1824. The eastern baseline was planned to be, and is, 8 miles north of downtown Detroit, but because a deputy surveyor misinterpreted the instructions in the survey contract, Michigan has a 935.88-foot jog in the east-west baseline. It’s the only state in the United States that has this feature.