Michigan State Highway 119 Article Index for
Michigan State
Website Links For
Michigan State
 

Information About

Michigan State Highway 119




The route was designated in 1979, on the former route of M-131 to avoid confusion with US 131 , which ends in Petoskey. Ironically, M-131 had originally been designated on the remainder of what had been M-13 when most of M-13 had been designated as US 131 in 1926. At that time, M-131 ran from Fife Lake to Harbor Springs . Over several years, the M-131 route was improved, and in 1938, the US-131 designation supplanted most of M-131's former route from Fife Lake to meet its "parent" route, US 31 , in Petoskey. Although the M-131 designation had been extended to Cross Village in 1933, that was cancelled in 1937, and so, by 1938, the route of M-131 was co-signed with US 31 from Petoskey to Bay View, and ended at Harbor Springs. By 1945, the road from Harbor Springs to Cross Village is re-added to M-131's route. In 1979, all of M-131 from Bay View to Cross Village is redesignated as M-119. According to Chris Bessert's Michigan Highways web site, the initial designation may have included the portion of M-131 that had been co-signed with US 31 from US 131 through Bay View, but there is no evidence that M-119 signs ever appeared on the concurrent route.

In 1928, the first incarnation of the M-119 designation ran four miles from Paw Paw south to Lawton in Van Buren County . In 1931, the route was extended south to Marcellus in Cass County and then again in 1933 to Jones and in 1935 to Mottville , thus providing a route between the old US 12 route in Paw Paw and US 112 in Mottville. In 1971, all of M-119 was redesignated as M-40 .


EXTERNAL LINKS