The Distance Between Towns

One of the aspects of doing this blog is that I do a fair amount of traveling around the state.  Some of that is on rural highways because that is my only choice.  Sadly, the picture only sort of goes with my tale.

One day as I was travelling on M-29 from Algonac to Port Huron, I noticed that many of distances between towns was about 8 miles.  I didn't really think about it until I was traveling elsewhere and noticed the same thing.  Again, it sat on the back burner as I thought about it.

I tried to look it up and the closest thing I could see was that was about the distance that a person could walk and back in one day.  I guess I could see that as towns would typically spring up along the trading routes.   Before the invention of railroads, you would either have to walk or ride a horse.  I can't imagine that a ladened horse would move much faster than a person.

Then I got to thinking about another thing.  It seems like county lines are about 30 miles apart and maybe the towns are arranged along a grid within those counties.  But I would imagine the county organization would come after the formation of some towns.

Honestly, I'm not sure but it is a good though exercise.