Reading, MI

Reading is a Hillsdale County city along M-49, surrounded by Reading Township even though the city and township are administered separately. The place began in 1835 as Basswood Corners, a name borrowed from the basswood trees near the main intersection. A post office called Reading opened in 1840, and the railroad arrived in 1868–69, turning the young settlement into a shipping point on the Lakeshore & Michigan Southern line.

Reading Community Schools serves the city and parts of nearby townships, giving the local school district a footprint wider than the city limits. The old railroad connection, M-49, and the school system still provide the basic lines of the town’s map, while the surrounding township keeps the setting rural beyond the center. Reading is a small Michigan city with a tree-named beginning, a railroad chapter, and an unusually clear municipal boundary between town and township. Its roughly one-square-mile footprint keeps the railroad, school, and township boundary close to one another, making the old name and newer institutions easy to see together.