U.S. Route 131 - Memorial Designations

Memorial Designations

US 131 and its predecessors bears several memorial designations in addition to the Sidney Ouwinga Memorial Bypass near Cadillac. One of the oldest is the Mackinaw Trail, named after a former Indian trail that ran from Saginaw to Mackinaw City and Sault Ste. Marie. By 1915, the name was transferred to the roadway that was later numbered US 131. The Mackinaw Trail Association was formed that year to promote an all-weather highway between Grand Rapids and Mackinaw City, using a logo incorporating a trout for the road. The name was to be officially applied to the highway in 1929, but the State Senate did not agree to the proposal. The official endorsement of the name came in 1959, after the opening of the Mackinac Bridge revitalized the idea.

During World War I, households would display a service flag if a family member was serving in the war. A blue star denoted a service member in action, and a gold star symbolized someone who died in the military. In St. Joseph County, the chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion wanted to honor the local fallen soldiers. Using the flags as inspiration, they planted 100 black walnut and four Norway spruce trees along the road south of Three Rivers. Dedicated on May 4, 1924, this tribute was named the Gold Star Memorial Highway and ran for 1.5 miles (2.4 km) along what is now US 131 south of Three Rivers.

In 1921, the section of highway south of Kalamazoo was named part of the Colgrove Highway. This designation included several other roads in the Lower Peninsula, all named in honor of Philip Colgrove, the first president of the Michigan Good Roads Association. Colgrove was also the Barry County prosecutor and a state senator in the late 19th century. No maps documents the name, although the original law remains in records. The Michigan Legislature proposed a bill in 2000 that would have repealed the 1921 statute naming the Colgrove Highway, but the bill ultimately faded, sparing the name.

In the age of the auto trails, it was common for highways to be named rather than numbered. An attempt to create a trail such as the Lincoln Highway failed in Michigan. School children in 1926 from Anderson, Indiana, wanted to honor James Whitcomb Riley, the poet from the Hoosier State, with a highway that connected the country's summer and winter resort areas. The Michigan segment of the road running through the state was to follow what would later be US 131. The James Whitcomb Riley Association promoted the highway by painting white bands on telephone poles with the name of the road in orange letters during that August and September. However, the road in question was already named the Mackinaw Trail, and the association did not secure permission of the state highway commissioner, as was required by a 1919 Michigan law. The law made it illegal for any "association to delineate or mark any other routes or trails through the State of Michigan... unless the same shall be approved in writing by the State Highway Commissioner." As a result, government officials refused to endorse the association's proposal, and Michigan was excluded from the highway. The efforts of the national association were stunted by the halted progress, and the highway was disbanded by December 1926.

The Michigan Trail, another auto trail from the 1920s, "followed just about every major trunk line at that time in the Lower Peninsula and covered over a thousand miles of state highways." The Michigan Trail started in Toledo, Ohio, and ran to Detroit; its branches extended to New Buffalo, Grand Rapids, and Port Huron. Other segments included US 131 between Kalamazoo and Petoskey, US 31 between New Buffalo and the Straits of Mackinac and a route between Port Huron and Big Rapids. The highway failed as a concept because it lacked focus, and many of the segments of roadway had already assigned names.

The most recent name applied to US 131 is related to the first. Enacted in 2004, Public Act 138 added an additional name to the Mackinaw Trail from the M-66 junction near Kalkaska to Petoskey, the "Green Arrow Route - Mackinaw Trail". Residents of the state have questioned the wisdom of having a "compound road name whose signboards be nearly as long as the highway itself."