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Criteria and Guidelines

Criteria and Guidelines

Eligibility

Eligibility for a marker is determined by historic significance at the local, state or national level, and in the case of historic resources, integrity. The following may be eligible for a Michigan Historical Marker and subsequent listing in the State Register of Historic Sites:

  • A historically significant building or structure
  • An object (i.e. vessel, shipwreck, railroad)
  • A site (i.e. cemetery, archaeological site)
  • A location without historic resources associated with an important historical figure, organization or event (i.e. the site of a demolished neighborhood)

Criteria

The burden of proof is on the applicant to provide primary source documentation that demonstrates and substantiates that the resource or subject:

  • Is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
  • Is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
  • Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
  • Has yielded information important to history or prehistory

Typically structures that have been moved from their original location, properties primarily commemorative in intent, and properties that have achieved significance within the past fifty years are not considered eligible for a Michigan Historical Marker unless they fall within the following categories:

  • A building or structure removed from its original location, but which is significant primarily for architectural value, or which is the surviving structure most associated with a historic person or event; or
  • A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition or symbolic value has invested it with its own historical significance; or
  • A property achieving significance within the past fifty years if it is of exceptional importance.

Timeframe guidelines to consider

  • Properties associated with demolished buildings require a ten year wait after the demolition to be considered.
  • To allow time for historical assessment, markers are not typically considered for persons until 20 years after death.
  • Markers are not typically considered for events until at least 20 years after they occur.

Location guidelines to consider

  • To protect historical integrity, markers cannot be erected on archaeological sites that retain research potential. 
  • Markers for a person's burial site should be erected inside the main entrance of the cemetery or at another public focal point inside its boundary. Markers are not intended to be memorials and should not be erected at the burial site. 

Applicants should have a commitment to preserving the historic resource that is being marked and will be expected to follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation for any modifications that must be made, in accordance with the Michigan Historical Markers Act of 2002. The State Historic Preservation Office is available for consultation at Preservation@Michigan.gov.

Properties that no longer meet the criteria for designation due to alteration inconsistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, demolition, or removal from their original site will be removed from the State Register of Historic Sites and the marker will be returned to the Michigan History Center.

Updated 3/11/2025