U.S. Route 131
U.S. Numbered Highway in Indiana and Michigan in the United States
US Highway 131 (US 131) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway, of which all but 0.64 of its 269.96 miles (1.03 of 434.46 km) are within the state of Michigan. The highway starts in rural Indiana south of the state line as a state road connection to the Indiana Toll Road. As the road crosses into Michigan it becomes a state trunkline highway that connects to the metropolitan areas of Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids before continuing north to its terminus at Petoskey. US 131 runs as a freeway from south of Portage through to Manton in the north. Part of this freeway runs concurrently with Interstate 296 (I-296) as an unsigned designation through Grand Rapids. US 131 forms an important corridor along the western side of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, running through rural farm and forest lands as well as urban cityscapes. Various names have been applied to the roadway over the years. The oldest, the Mackinaw Trail, originated from an Indian trail in the area while other names honored politicians. An attempt to dedicate the highway to poet James Whitcomb Riley failed to gain official support in Michigan.
The first state highways along the US 131 corridor were designated as early as 1919.
“U.S. Route 131” enters the record as u.S. Numbered Highway in Indiana and Michigan in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Route, Numbered and Highway can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“U.S. Route 131” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Route, Numbered and Highway provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q440540. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1919.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 131” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.