The Middle of the Mitten

If Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten, St. Louis is close to its middle. The city’s community profile calls it the peninsula’s geographic center “as closely as can be determined.” In 1876, surveyor Sidney S. Hastings placed a stone there. A plaque added in 2009 now marks the location in Clapp Park, along M-46. That documented marker is the reason the “Middle of the Mitten” line is more than a catchy nickname.

St. Louis also had a mineral-springs chapter. In 1868, a crew drilling for salt struck mineral water instead. People soon credited the water with healing powers. A bathhouse and the Park Hotel followed, and visitors came to stay and take the waters. The city says hotels, opera houses, and other businesses grew with the resort trade.

The resort years ended, but the two stories still fit together: St. Louis once drew travelers to its water, and it now marks a surveyed point near the center of the Lower Peninsula. Both are easy to repeat as folklore. The city’s own records provide the useful dates and names behind them.