Birch Run Township, at the south end of the county

Birch Run Township fills the south east corner of Saginaw County, where Interstate 75 and the old Dixie Highway run on toward Flint. The 2025 Census Gazetteer gives it 35.5 square miles of land, and its centre lies about 14.4 miles from the middle of the City of Saginaw in a straight line and 4.9 miles from the middle of Frankenmuth. The April 2020 Census base counts 5,889 people, about 166 to the square mile, and the July 2025 estimate is 5,853, so the population is holding level. Those Census figures include the Village of Birch Run, which sits inside the township but, according to a search summary, was incorporated in 1955 and runs its own affairs. The township is much older. The county history of 1881, read through a summary, says its first annual meeting of electors was held on 4 April 1853, and that Joseph Matheson won the first supervisor's seat by 18 votes to 17. Most travellers know the place for the outlet mall at exit 136, which summaries say opened in 1986 as Manufacturer's Marketplace.

A 1970s township

The 2020 to 2024 Census survey counts 2,607 homes in Birch Run Township, with a median build year of 1977. The 1970s were the busiest decade by a distance, at 697 homes, a little over a quarter of the stock, and the 1990s came second with 467. An older layer survives too: 303 homes, about one in nine, went up in 1939 or earlier, many of them farmhouses and village houses. In all 1,518 homes, 58.2 percent, were standing before 1980, and 465 date from 2000 or later. Single detached houses make up 84.1 percent of the stock and there are 159 mobile homes, which have no basement to waterproof. Owners live in 1,992 of the 2,388 occupied homes, 83.4 percent, and the median owner occupied value is 216,700 dollars.

A 1970s basement is usually poured concrete or block over a footing drain to a sump. When it takes water, the first suspects are a pump that has run for decades, a pit too shallow for a wet spring, and a discharge line that empties beside the wall. The pre war houses are another matter: fieldstone or early block, often with no footing drain at all. Where water comes through the wall itself and the yard is open, digging out and sealing the outside is sometimes the honest answer, and it is the option that needs the most care with permits and soil.

The drains that cross county lines

Birch Run sits on the watershed edge where Saginaw, Genesee and Tuscola counties meet, and some of its drains belong to all three. A state agriculture department notice, seen through a search summary, lists a drainage board meeting on 10 November 2026 for the Birch Run Creek Intercounty Drain, with members from those three counties. Saginaw County's 2024 assessment list, also summarised, carries a charge of 13,800 dollars on the same drain. A county presentation from September 2021, read the same way, describes the Fairchild Creek drain near Birch Run Road leaving its banks in heavy rain, with backwater from the Shiawassee flats pushing water upstream. In May 2019 public radio reported flooding in Birch Run while Frankenmuth was under water. If your lot ponds for days after a storm, the drain serving your parcel may be the bottleneck, and Saginaw County Public Works, on 989-790-5258, can tell you which drain district you are in.

Permits on Main Street

Saginaw County does not run a building department for townships, so the permit comes from Birch Run Township. The township code, read through a summary, names its building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing officials as the enforcing agency under the state construction code act, and says work may not be covered until it has been inspected. A township form, also summarised, asks for at least 48 hours of notice to book a mechanical inspection. The hall is at 8425 Main Street, Birch Run, on (989) 624-9773, open weekdays with a short lunch closure. If your address is inside the village, ask the hall first whether the job goes through the township or the village.

Nearby

Frankenmuth, five miles north, uses a shared code authority rather than a building department of its own, and Bridgeport sits on the Cass River further north west.