![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/split-rock.jpg?resize=238%2C358&ssl=1\")
Some time around the earliest days of the College, a wild cherry pit was deposited by chance in a small cleft in the rock. Despite the inhospitable growing conditions, the cherry pit sprouted, rooted, and thrived. By the turn of the twentieth century, the inexorable force of the living tree had riven the rock asunder, and the broken granite acquired its second nickname: the \u201cSplit Rock.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1924, in anticipation of the Michigan Avenue road widening<\/a>, the Half-way Stone was broken up and removed from its original resting place, approximately where the eastbound lanes of Michigan Avenue meet Mifflin Avenue today in Lansing\u2019s Eastside neighborhood. Appropriately, two large pieces were taken to the opposite ends of the journey: one was placed on the Capitol lawn, the other was placed near the southwest corner of the newly completed Union Memorial Building<\/a>, where a cherry tree was planted nearby.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Affixed to the on-campus fragment is a plaque containing a stanza of poetry by Frank Hodgman (M.A.C. \u201962, author of the basic guide Manual of Land Surveying<\/em>, and the first president of the Alumni Association<\/a><\/span>) from his 1898 collection The Wandering Singer and His Songs<\/em>. The ballad, a lengthy reminiscence on his days at M.A.C., was titled \u201cForty Years Ago.\u201d4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n When half the toilsome way was passed, we rested by the stone Other portions of the Split Rock were taken by the removal contractor, Fay Dunning, and \u201cused in the construction of the archway and chimney of his residence at the corner of Grand River Avenue and Durand Street.\u201d Sadly, this house \u201cwas demolished in 1969 to make way for a short-lived \u2018Tijuana Taco,\u2019\u201d and the remaining fragments of the Half-way Stone were lost.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Update, August 2022: As it happens, a small fragment of the rock, mounted to a varnished board along with a small brass plaque dated 1925, resides in the local history collection of the East Lansing Public Library. As of this writing it is not on display.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Long before the days of asphalt and automobiles, the three-mile journey between downtown Lansing and the Michigan Agricultural College was arduous and wearisome at best. What today is Michigan Avenue was a dirt track with occasional corduroy\u2014logs laid perpendicular to the direction of travel\u2014to prevent wagon wheels from sinking into the mire. When it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"Minutes<\/a>, 7\u00a0Feb\u00a01888, p.\u00a0538; 28\u00a0Feb\u00a01888, p.\u00a0540.\",\"id\":\"cc6aa368-6a2a-4471-9520-eb40389f9136\"},{\"content\":\"Towar<\/a>, pp. 1\u20133.\",\"id\":\"b56242b2-3fcb-4a56-add9-4fd89411834a\"},{\"content\":\"Stanford<\/a>, p.\u00a046. MSU Today<\/a>, 26 Apr 2018.\",\"id\":\"51ff3316-10c5-426f-bf00-61b2b7fca84b\"},{\"content\":\"Kuhn<\/a>, pp.\u00a0121, 130.\u00a0Beal<\/a>, p.\u00a0311.\",\"id\":\"6a968207-cd1a-4e01-8367-3c4f61d07e6f\"},{\"content\":\"Towar<\/a>, p.\u00a03.\u00a0Kestenbaum<\/a>, p.\u00a05.\",\"id\":\"85293886-0eb1-435f-9b64-d1c450afd233\"}]"},"categories":[32,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-and-around-east-lansing","category-m-a-c-campus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4801,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/4801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/halfway-stone.jpg?resize=300%2C368&ssl=1\")
\n
Within whose cleft a cherry pit had taken root and grown;
The cleft was not so very wide; just half an inch or so;
The little tree scarce touched its side some forty years ago.<\/p>\nFrank Hodgman ’62<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Split-Rock-fragment.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1\")