Poniatowski, Wisconsin

Near the unincorporated town of Poniatowski is a small park at the point where the 45th Parallel crosses the 90th Meridian, a north-south line one quarter of the way around the earth from the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England. A sign and marker here were placed by the Wausau Convention & Visitors Bureau for 45th Parallel tourists to visit. The park is located on Meridian Road about a half mile northwest of Poniatowski, where the church steeple is visible in the photo below.

The tiny park on the edge of a farm field owes its existence to the enthusiasm of one 45th Parallel fan. John Gesicki owned a bar and general store in nearby Poniatowski in the 1940s-1990s. Occasional geographic tourists had visited the area since at least the 1930s, but there was no marker of the exact location of the 45-90 crossing. In the 1960s Gesicki began promoting the intersection as an interesting local landmark that might bring more tourism to his town. In his free time he spent several years scouring paper maps and survey documents to determine the precise location of the intersection. He convinced the owners of this spot to donate 0.14 acres of their field to make a tiny county park. The county parks department put up a large wooden sign in 1969. A few years later a U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the 45-90 intersection at this site and added an official benchmark.

The site was the smallest county park in Wisconsin. Originally there was not much here other than the sign and a parking lot, not even a picnic bench, as shown in this view from 2004.

In the early 2000s, improvements in GPS technology based on a geoid model of the earth allowed surveyors to pinpoint a more refined location of the 45-90 intersection. Home hobbyists with handheld GPS receivers could see that the new location was about 1/4 mile farther east out in the farm field. In 2017 the landowners granted an easement to the county to enlarge the park to this spot. A mowed path now leads east from the original park around the edge of the fields along the treeline to a new marker at the more accurate site.

At the 90th Meridian, the path turns south to a row of signs explaining surveying technology, the 45th Parallel and other locations where the 45th and 90th lines cross which are mostly in the open ocean.

One sign pays tribute to Gesicki and his efforts to promote the site.

The final sign near the crossing point is a sort of twin to the first sign in the parking lot.

The narrow park ends at a circular monument on the ground allowing visitors to stand on the precise intersecting lines of the 45th Parallel and 90th Meridian. Under the carpet of grass, the inlaid lines race off to the horizon and circle the globe in the imagination.

This point can also be considered the center of the Northwestern Hemisphere. John Gesicki noted in several interviews that his quest to locate the 45-90 intersection proved his feelings that there was "something special" about his town and this area. Like many who live near the 45th Parallel, he seems to have taken comfort in the idea of the Parallel as a well-balanced midpoint between earthly extremes. It is a coincidence that the 45-90 intersection is also located in the middle of Wisconsin, in balance between the pine forests of the north and the farmlands of the south, and in the gap between the more populated cities on the east and west sides of the state.

In the past, pilgrims to the 45-90 marker often stopped by Gesicki's bar in nearby Poniatowski. By recording their names in a logbook they became members of the "45x90 Club" and received a commemorative coin. Gesicki was proud to show off the thick book with thousands of names of visitors from around the world, before he passed away in 1995.

The old 45x90 Club register is now located at the the Wausau/Central Wisconsin Visitors Center in downtown Wausau. 45th Parallel tourists can still add their names to join the club and receive a coin souvenir.

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