About Midland

A Community of Beauty

(Click here to visit the Photo Gallery)

The City of Midland maintains 72 City parks on 2,700 acres of land - more than twice the amount of park land in the cities of Mt. Pleasant, Bay City, and Saginaw combined!  Small neighborhood parks nestled within residential areas are found throughout the city so that each neighborhood has a unique place for family recreation and small gatherings. Larger groups can enjoy the amenities of several big parks in the city. Two of the community's largest parks, Emerson and Plymouth, are favorites for softball diamonds, sheltered picnic areas, playgrounds, and - at Plymouth Park - an outdoor pool.

Nature is found in abundance at Midland’s Dow Gardens, a 100-acre garden originally designed for the home of Dow Chemical Company founder Herbert H. Dow in 1899.

Midland's sister city in Handa, Japan, has made our community more beautiful with the gift of a Stone Lantern Garden, located on the grounds of the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library. There are also many gifts to the city of Midland that are on display at the library, and hundreds of Japanese cherry trees that dot our community's landscape.

The main entrances to Midland feature colorful wayfinding signage and a variety of flowers and plantings to greet visitors and residents alike. At the Eastman Avenue/U.S. 10 overpass, there are copper medallions handcrafted by artists in the Ardis family that grace all four sides of the bridge (see below).

Midland home and business owners take great pride in their natural surroundings, enhancing their landscapes with bright and colorful plantings, many of which are native to Michigan. Midland Blooms, held on a Saturday morning each spring, ibrngs volunteers out in full force to plant flowers and foliage along Midland's busiest thoroughfare - Eastman Avenue. Property owners make the most of their outdoor surroundings, and many Midlanders are rewarded through an annual Appreciation of Beautification awards competition, which encourages maintaining lovely exteriors to enhance our already beautiful community.

Other areas offering lovely natural settings include bike trails at City Forest; the 30-mile Pere Marquette Rail-Trail for walking, running, or bicycling; and a recent addition to our community, the four-mile Chippewa Nature Trail, which connects to the Pere Marquette Rail-Trail and serves as another natural, green pathway for recreational enjoyment.

Photo Gallery

Click on images below to enlarge them.