by Dale Berry, Editor, michiganrailroads.com
In the 1700's and early 1800's, settlers moving west from New York had few options other than to ride on horseback, use a horse drawn wagon, or perhaps try to sail a boat or canoe along the shore of Lake Erie. Two innovations occurred in the early 1800's which changed things dramatically. First, the Erie Canal was built which was a more comfortable and faster option than a horse drawn wagon. The second innovation was the invention and deployment of the steam powered boat from Buffalo to Michigan with its obvious advantages.
Some early pioneers reached the lower peninsula of Michigan and settled in Detroit. Other landing areas were Port Lawrence (changed to Toledo in 1833), Monroe, Windsor and smaller ports along the Detroit and St. Clair rivers. But for many, the lure of farming in the lower peninsula of the Michigan Territory was strong. Many wanted to cross Lake Michigan and reach what would become Chicago, Milwaukee and the west.
In 1837, Michigan achieved statehood and immediately began "internal improvements" across the state, including two railroads and a canal.
The state-owned "Central" line began at a station in downtown Detroit (image at left) and headed west with a goal of reaching Lake Michigan near what is now South Haven. Boats would take travelers west across Lake Michigan. [Station List]
The other state-owned railroad was the "Southern" line, which began at the pier of Monroe heading west via Adrian with a goal of reaching the New Buffalo area on Lake Michigan. The Erie & Kalamazoo railroad, an early horse-drawn railroad from Toledo to Adrian, was soon leased to the Southern railroad, giving them access to both Toledo and Monroe. [Station List]
Shortly after the start of laying track, a financial panic set in and construction of both lines slowed dramatically. By 1839, the state was struggling with its finances.
By 1847, the Central line had reached Kalamazoo and the Southern line had reached Hillsdale. To recoup their expenses, state government decided to sell both lines to different private investors. A canal that had been started in Macomb County ceased operation but never amounted to much.
The Central line was sold to Boston investors for $2,000,000 and renamed the "Michigan Central Railroad". The Southern line was sold for $500,000 to New York investors and was renamed the "Michigan Southern Railroad". Both railroads were expected to reach Lake Michigan as originally intended, where train cars would be bulk unloaded into steam ships for the remaining miles to Chicago and the west.
As Chicago gained popularity as an urban center and gateway to the west the railroads changed their plans. The state was wary of this change to the railroad's initial commitment to reach Lake Michigan.
The Michigan Southern actually achieved their Lake Michigan connection by constructing a branch from White Pigeon north several miles to Constantine and a dock along the St. Joseph River (which ultimately emptied into Lake Michigan). They then went south into Indiana.
The Michigan Central reached their new goal at New Buffalo, where they established docks. They then headed south towards Chicago as well.
As the economy improved and with new private funding, the race to Chicago by the two competing railroads was back on. The Michigan Southern merged with the Northern Indiana railroad and reached Elkhart in northeast Indiana. From Elkhart, the line used a lake shore route to reach South Bend and downtown Chicago. It ultimately became the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railroad (the "Lake Shore").
The Michigan Central also headed into Indiana via Michigan City. It crossed the MS&NI at Porter and connected with the Illinois Central railroad (IC) at Kensington, Illinois. They used IC trackage rights for many years to reach downtown Chicago.
Both of these competing roads reached downtown Chicago at almost the same time in 1852. (See map below).
When the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana reached Chicago in 1852, it connected (via the E&K) with the expanding Lake Shore railroad east of Toledo. New York travelers could now travel directly by rail to Chicago by way of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, and the MS&NI road in Michigan through Adrian, Hillsdale, Coldwater, Sturgis, White Pigeon and Elkhart. This became the first railroad from the east to reach Chicago.
This notable achievement didn't last long. The MS&NI line through southern Michigan happened to be a meandering route that struggled to compete with the Michigan Central and its steamships across Lake Erie. As one example during construction, the residents of Jonesville convinced the railroad to turn north from Hillsdale to reach their town along the Chicago military road, and then go west.
Five years after completion of their original line to Chicago, the MS&NI built its so-called "Air Line" route from Toledo directly to Elkhart, cutting miles and travel time for people heading to Chicago. It was called the “Air Line” because for many miles the line was a tangent.
Only five years old, the original route through Michigan was renamed the "Old Road". It was not that old, but older than the direct "Air Line" a few miles to the south. About two thirds of Chicago passenger trains on the Old Road were diverted to the Air Line route. The original "Southern" line from Monroe west to Adrian (actually to Lenawee Junction) was downgraded to branch line status but survived until the 1960's.
One year later in 1858, local investors built the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad from the east side of downtown Detroit (later Brush Street Station) and north via Pontiac, Durand, Ionia, and Grand Rapids to Grand Haven on Lake Michigan. Steam ships from Grand Haven extended the line's reach to Milwaukee, though they didn't carry rail cars until many years later. Freight was unloaded from rail cars and reloaded on ships for delivery. This was the fourth cross peninsula route. (See red line in map below). [Station List: East | West ]
During the civil war, railroad construction in Michigan stopped. Then around 1871, there began a feverish pace to build other trans-peninsula railroads to capture the east-west Chicago and Milwaukee passenger and freight business. Unfortunately, the next three projects became "catch and kill" projects with their own individual stories.
Catch and Kill #1: The Michigan Air Line Railroad Company
The first - in 1871 - was the Michigan Air Line railroad (MAL) (not to be confused with the Air Line route in Ohio and Indiana). Local investors built the MAL east from Niles and at some point they hoped to sell it to a Canadian railroad as a fifth trans-peninsula route. The route was surveyed from Niles through Jackson and Pontiac, and east to the St. Clair river south of Port Huron with hopes of crossing by ferry into Canada. The Canada Southern or Grand Trunk of Canada were the likely the buyers. By then, the Michigan Central relationship with the Grand Trunk was strained.
As the MAL built east from Niles, the investors needed more money. They also needed to cross the important Michigan Central (MC) main line at Jackson Junction. The line would be a direct competitor to the MC on its own. But if the Canada Southern or the Grand Trunk purchased the MAL, it would give them a competing cross country route with the MC, and the MC would still be forced to deal with them in Ontario (between Windsor and Buffalo).
Even before the Air Line reached Jackson, the MC stepped in and bought the portion of the line between Niles and Jackson. A small section surveyed north of the MC main line in Jackson later became the Jackson Belt line. They finished the Air Line about 1873. The MC also bought the east end of the line between St. Clair and Ridgeway, preventing the CS or GT from using it to cross the St. Clair river.
Progress east of Jackson to Richmond on the remainder of the right of way ceased. The MC had effectively "caught and killed" the project west of Jackson and on the east end at St. Clair. Their purchase north of the main line (the “Belt”) in Jackson made it more difficult for any future purchaser of the eastern section to enter Jackson.
In addition to temporarily eliminating the CSD or GT as a cross-peninsula competitor, the MC was growing and beginning to double track their main line west of Detroit. They used their new Air Line branch as a "second" main line track from Jackson to Niles, with most eastbound freight trains from Niles operating on the Air Line and westbound freight trains continuing to use the main line via Kalamazoo. This line was so important to the MC that they later established a concrete coaling tower at Clarendon and several track pans for scooping up water.
Most passenger trains continued to run on the main line in both directions because of the larger towns along that route, but the Air Line had a couple of passenger trains throughout this period in both directions to handle local traffic. This bidirectional operation lasted well into the 1900's when the main line was finally double-tracked all the way to Chicago.
This catch and kill effort worsened relations between the MC and the GT and the writing was on the wall, which led to the purchase by the MC of the Canada Southern Railroad in Canada and in the U.S. See Catch and Kill #3 below.
The Grand Trunk continued to search for cross-peninsula options to Chicago and they eventually bought the east division of the Air Line, from Richmond west to Jackson via Pontiac and South Lyon. This was not a practical solution for their needs because they were "boxed in" at Jackson and the towns west of Pontiac were small. But they operated the line as their Jackson branch into the 1980's. It never had more than 1-2 passenger trains daily, as well as a daily freight train to serve Jackson, the state prison, the South Lyon tube plant, gravel pits near New Hudson, and other towns along the route. (See map below). [Station List: West | East ]
The second "catch and kill" railroad was the Chicago, Saginaw & Canada railroad. This was the project of a man known in the newspapers as Captain Craw. In 1873, he envisioned a line west across the peninsula between Port Huron and Lake Michigan via Saginaw and Howard City. This line was a direct competitor with the St. Louis & Saginaw railroad which was promoting a similar route. As Capt. Craw built the first section of line between Saginaw and St. Louis, he ran out of money.
James Joy of the Michigan Central railroad stepped in. Craw had built an expensive new swing drawbridge across the Saginaw River to connect his proposed line with East Saginaw and a future connection going east to Canada. He hoped to join with the Port Huron and Northwestern railroad, a narrow gauge line being built northwest from Port Huron to Saginaw via Marlette.
By 1873, Joy had built his Detroit & Bay City railroad between its namesake cities and quickly realized he missed a needed connection with Saginaw, which was becoming the largest logging center in Michigan. The MC's Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw line had arrived in west Saginaw and Joy wanted to connect the D&BC to it.
In 1879, Joy bought the yet-to-be-used drawbridge from Craw which stopped Craw’s cross-peninsula plan. The first train to use this new drawbridge was actually a D&BC train. As part of the deal, Craw's line west of Saginaw obtained favorable trackage rights from Saginaw to Paines from the MC (on the JL&S branch), and Joy likely purchased Craw's surveyed right of way through East Saginaw and on to Denmark Junction on the D&BC near Vassar. Both the Chicago, Saginaw and Canada, and the competing St. Louis and Saginaw railroad eventually fell into the hands of the Detroit Grand Haven & Western, which became part of the Pere Marquette system twenty years later.
The Pere Marquette railroad eventually purchased the narrow-gauge Port Huron & Northwestern which finally reached Saginaw and was converted to standard gauge. This line became a PM strategy for reaching Port Huron and Canada from Grand Rapids, Ludington and Saginaw. It was used for this purpose until the 1970's.
The final "catch & kill" deal was the Canada Southern railroad, or CASO. This project was intended to extend their rails across Ontario to the Detroit River at Grosse Isle. After crossing the river by car ferry, it would follow a straight line route through southern Michigan to near Montpelier, Ohio and then proceed west to Chicago just south of the Michigan border.
The CASO actually got a good start and built docks on the Detroit River at Gordon, Ontario, near Leamington. They also built a ferry dock on the United States side at Stony Island. Their trains crossed from Stony Island to Grosse Isle via a wooden Howe truss bridge (see image). A station, yard and Custom's House was built and then the railroad crossed the island over land to the west side where a large swing-drawbridge was built across the Trenton channel of the Detroit River to Slocum's (near Trenton). Slocum's was named after a local land-owner in the area.
Near Slocum's, the line crossed the new Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana branch from Toledo to Detroit and then proceeded west towards Chicago by way of Dundee, Deerfield, Morenci and Fayette, Ohio. Along with the heavy cost of crossing two major river channels, the CASO had also diverted their capital to build a branch line from Slocum's north to Detroit. They also surveyed a planned branch from Slocum's south to Toledo. Both of these branches paralleled the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana, providing formidable competition.
Then the CASO investors ran out of money, a familiar theme in all of these "catch and kill" deals. The CASO, if completed, would have been a major competitor for both the Michigan Central and Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana railroads.
James Joy, the President of the Michigan Central was also one of the nation's leading railroad lawyers. It should be noted that around this time, the Vanderbilt family had a controlling interest in the MS&NI, and was purchasing stock in the Michigan Central. So it seems that Joy stepped into the CASO dilemma with "both feet" for both railroads. The declining relationship with the Grand Trunk in Canada and the need to have their own line through Ontario was also on his mind.
Joy bought the CASO and stopped the project "in its tracks". Joy retained the part of the CASO in Canada which became the MC's connection to Buffalo and the Niagara Falls area. He built a branch from Essex to Windsor and ties with the Grand Trunk of Canada were no longer required. The MC used the line from Leamington to Grosse Isle for a time as a cross-river car ferry operation, but this was soon replaced with Detroit-Windsor car ferry service and the service was closed. The CASO branches to Detroit and Toledo were finished and incorporated into the MC's network.
Joy sold the line west from Slocum's (Trenton) to Vanderbilt's Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana. They used it briefly before the east half of the line was pulled up from Slocom’s to Grosvenor, a connection in Lenawee County with the Old Road. The part of the line west of Grosvenor became the MS&NI's Fayette branch (served from Adrian) and later cut back to Morenci. (Seen red dotted line in map below).
Ironically, it appears that the surveyed and partially graded section of the proposed CASO line from Montpelier to Chicago was soon used as the 4th District of the new Wabash railroad, again creating a cross-peninsular competing route with the MC and MS&I in northern Ohio. More on that later. [Station List]
Two years later in 1875, the Flint & Pere Marquette put together a group of lines which finally crossed the middle of the peninsula via Monroe, Flint, Saginaw and Ludington. (See red line in the map below).They leased trackage rights on the Lake Shore railroad from Monroe to Toledo, but the two railroads had a disagreement after a F&PM train rear-ended a a LS&MS train in the Toledo "tunnel" and the Lake Shore was sued. The Lake Shore demanded indemnification and the F&PM refused, building their own parallel line from Monroe to Toledo via Alexis.
On the west end at Ludington, the F&PM operated break-bulk steam ships across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee, Manitowoc, Kewaunee and Manistique. They also began railroad car ferry service to these points in the 1890's. This was the fifth cross peninsula railroad. ]Station List: East | West ]
1881-1883: Three New Routes Across the Peninsula
Six years later, cross-peninsula railroad construction proceeded rapidly again.
The first of these happened quickly, when the Mackinaw Transportation Company began car ferry service across the Straits of Mackinac. Detroit businessmen had always desired to take advantage of the rich mineral areas of Michigan's western upper peninsula which the state had obtained in exchange for ceding the “Toledo strip” to Ohio in 1837.
Mining in the U.P. began in the 1850's and the first railroads were built to move mining equipment and minerals around the region in 1857. Lake Michigan steamships were not large enough to carry rail cars until the 1890's and required break-bulk transfer to steam ships. Iron ore could be loaded from cars to ships using ore docks in Marquette, Escanaba and Ashland. Copper bars were transloaded to ships in Houghton. As a result, for the first 30 years of U.P. mining, Chicago and Milwaukee railroads were the dominant lines in the western Upper Peninsula and Detroit-based railroads were cut out of the action.
In the 1870's, new iron ore mines were being opened in the Menominee and Gogebic ranges, from Norway to Ironwood, via Iron Mountain, Crystals Falls and Iron River. Michigan investors were again left out of the process.
Detroit businessman James McMillan and others attempted to solve this in 1881 by building the Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette railroad (DM&M) in the Upper Peninsula from St. Ignace west to Marquette via Trout Lake and Newberry. McMillan was the principle owner of the Michigan (railroad) Car Company and later the Michigan Malleable Iron Works, both in Detroit. He also owned the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company (passenger steamships) which plied the Great Lakes and he later became a United States Senator from Michigan. He was wealthy and had wealthy friends.
The link between the lower peninsula and McMillan's DM&M was completed when the Mackinaw Transportation Company began ferry service between docks at Mackinaw City and St. Ignace. The Michigan Central had reached Mackinaw City in 1882 and the Grand Rapids & Indiana railroad (GR&I) arrived shortly thereafter. The cross-straits operation was originally a break-bulk operation but when marine railroad car transport became viable, the 5-mile trip across the Straits enabled passenger and freight cars to have seamless cross-lake transport without unloading.
By 1887, another connection was achieved when the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie railroad (Soo Line) built east to Sault St. Marie from Minneapolis and Gladstone and a connection with the DM&M at Trout Lake. This cross-peninsula route helped bring Detroit closer to the iron and copper range of the western Upper Peninsula, but Chicago interests put many obstacles in their way. A wooden iron ore dock was built by the DM&M at St. Ignace but was never successful and torn down to reuse the lumber a few years later.
Both of these east-west upper peninsula railroads (Soo and DM&M) were purchased by the Canadian Pacific railroad but operated independently. The bridge traffic from Detroit via the straits improved commerce for the MC and GR&I but were never financially successful. The Mackinac Transportation Co. was the final link in the sixth cross peninsula route.
Three interesting side notes are related to the Straits of Mackinac. First, the MC, GR&I and McMillan's Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company built the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in a record time of three months. It remains successful today as one of the finest resort hotels in the nation. Second, in the late 1800's, the Vanderbilt family (owner of the MC and Lake Shore) had controlling interest in the Chicago & North Western railroad, which was the dominant rail provider in the iron range in the western upper peninsula. Did the Vanderbilts really want McMillan to succeed? Probably not. Third, the purchase of McMillan's railroad (DM&M) and the Soo Line by the Canadian Pacific apparently surprised the GT which was also considering purchase of the lines. Once this happened, the GT had another reason to figure out a way to cross the lower peninsula from Canada to Chicago. Instead of going across the U.P., they had to cross lower peninsula. [Station List: MC | DSS&A | Soo ]
In 1877, The Grand Trunk of Canada finally fulfilled their own plan to reach Chicago across the lower peninsula of Michigan via Port Huron. This line connected Lapeer, Flint, Lansing, Battle Creek, and South Bend to the windy city of Chicago. The GT line originally used car ferries to reach Port Huron from Sarnia until Michigan's first subterranean tunnel was opened under the St. Clair River in 1891.
It took eight years for the Grand Trunk to assemble this cross peninsula route, as the Vanderbilt interests put up roadblocks and even began construction of a competing line between Flint and Lansing. But the Canadians prevailed and this immediately became a busy double-track railroad between Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Flint, Lansing, Battle Creek, South Bend and Chicago. The GT also leased lines from Port Huron to Detroit and Detroit to Durand, connecting industrial Detroit to both Chicago and Toronto. This was the seventh cross peninsula line. [Station List: East | West ]
The third line in 1877 to cross the peninsula was the Wabash Railroad. Detroit businessmen were not comfortable with the Vanderbilt takeover of the Michigan Central and the Lake Shore (MS&NI). The market power of this combination was costly for Detroit and they looked for other options.
James Joy, the former President and long time attorney of the MC, had left that organization after the Vanderbilts replaced the board of directors.
Joy then joined up with the Wabash railroad which hoped to reach Detroit from St. Louis, Chicago and other locations in Ohio and Indiana.
Joy worked to bring the Wabash into Detroit and formed the Fort Street Union Depot (FSUD) company to provide downtown passenger and freight facilities. FSUD was located along Third Street, a stone's throw from the MC depot. Crossing over top of the MC by the FSUD line (via an overpass) was the subject of much controversy at the Michigan Railroad Commission, as the MC threw roadblocks at every opportunity.
The Wabash first built their line from West Detroit to Montpelier, Ohio via Delray, Romulus, Belleville and Adrian. They crossed the MC and Lake Shore at Delray and extended their track to the new FSUD downtown. Near Montpelier, the Wabash obtained the former CASO surveyed right of way west to Chicago which had been partially graded. This became another cross-peninsular route, the eighth. (See new red lines in map below).
Later in the 1920's the Pennsylvania railroad came to Detroit by a combination of trackage rights and building their own line between Carleton and Delray. Along with the Wabash and Pere Marquette railroads, they formed the Union Belt of Detroit, dramatically increasing competition in the Motor City for new automobile production. The Wabash also allowed the PRR "Red Arrow" and other passenger trains to use the Wabash line to Fort Wayne, and the high-speed PRR main line west to Chicago. [Station List: East | West ]
Seven years later in 1889, the Ann Arbor railroad finally reached a Lake Michigan port at Frankfort and Elberta, from their original terminus in Toledo, Ohio. This cross-peninsula railroad was the brainchild of Toledo promotor Col. James M. Ashley Sr., who tried at least three other plans to reach some where. With the help of Saginaw's Wellington R. Burt, he finally settled on the Lake Michigan port of Frankfort.
After Ashley reached Ann Arbor in 1878, he tried to build north to Pontiac using the east end of the graded Michigan Air Line (MAL) right-of-way. He got as far as South Lyon when the GT purchased the eastern division of the MAL (This was actually a “cut and kill” effort against the Ann Arbor by the GT). That was Ashley’s Attempt #1.
Ashley then regrouped and built north from Whitmore Lake to Durand, where he collaborated with Wellington R. Burt to extend the line into Saginaw.
Burt, described by newspapers at the time as the wealthiest man in Michigan, made his money in logging, salt production, and timber land speculation. He was president of the Michigan Salt Association and apparently was dissatisfied with the Flint & Pere Marquette which served his Saginaw salt blocks and mills. He financed construction of Ashley's line from Durand to Saginaw and Bay City, and let Ashley run it for a time as part of the Ann Arbor railroad. Ashley wanted to go farther north to Mackinaw. That lasted only a year before Ashley ran out of money and Burt turned his Saginaw line over to the GT. This was Ashley’s Attempt #2.
With Burt's financial help, Ashley then completed his line to the town he named after himself, called Ashley. Here he diverted west towards Muskegon via Greenville in another attempt to cross the peninsula. This was a line which was parallel to - and about twenty miles north of - the now-GT’s cross peninsula Grand Haven line. It would be in direct competition with them. Ashley again ran out of money - likely Burt's money - and this branch was then purchased by the GT which turned it into another “catch" (but don't kill) cross-peninsular route. This was Ashley's Attempt #3. The line to Muskegon was the nineth cross peninsula route but it never operated as such as the GT favored its former D&M line through Grand Rapids.
Finally, Ashley headed north to Frankfort and Elberta via Clare and Cadillac, arriving on the lake shore in 1889. From the dock in Elberta, the Ann Arbor operated cross lake car ferries to Milwaukee, Kewaunee, Menominee, Gladstone and Manistique, which had always been Ashley's dream. Now called the Ann Arbor Railroad, this was Michigan’s tenth cross peninsular route. (See red line in the map below).
Ashley and Burt were friends and collaborated on a number of railroad projects. Burt benefited by building railroads into the forests (to Muskegon and to Frankfort) because it raised the value of his speculative hardwood timber land holdings. His Saginaw mills and salt blocks also benefited from a friendly line between Durand and Saginaw. Lastly, Burt's daughter was married to one of Ashley's sons, so it was good for Burt's family as well.
The original Ashley line from Toledo to Ann Arbor was called the Toledo & Ann Arbor railroad. Building north from Ann Arbor, the name was changed to the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Grand Trunk Railway (TAA>) and when the South Lyon connection fell through, it was changed to the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan (TAA&NM). The Saginaw line was known as the Toledo, Saginaw and Mackinaw Railroad (TS&M). The Muskegon line was known as the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon Railroad (also TS&M). All of these initials were similar and confusing. When Burt reorganized his Saginaw branch for operation by the Grand Trunk, he gave it an all-new name: The Cincinnati, Saginaw and Mackinaw (CS&M) to differentiate it. The railroad never got anywhere near Cincinnati or Mackinaw. [Station List:: South | Middle | North ]
The Pere Marquette Finally Puts It All Together
In 1903, the new Pere Marquette railroad put together a final cross-peninsula route in a rather round-about way. The 1900 PM merger of the Detroit, Lansing & Lake Michigan (Detroit to Grand Rapids) combined with the Chicago & West Michigan (Grand Rapids to LaPorte, Indiana), along with the Flint & Pere Marquette (Toledo to Ludington) created one of Michigan's largest railroad networks. The PM added a new extension from Benton Harbor to Porter, Indiana and negotiated trackage rights on the Lake Shore and other railroads into Chicago. This became the new PM's second cross peninsula line, along with their existing Ludington division. It was the lower peninsula’s eleventh crossing and directly led into Chicago. (See red line on the map below). [Station List: East | South West ]
The final cross-peninsula line may not qualify, but it gets an Honorable Mention in our story. The Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena railroad finally reached Lake Huron from Lake Michigan (sort of) in 1918. The BCG&A was a common-carrier railroad principally used for logging, and it always struggled financially. It technically reached Lake Michigan through a port at Boyne City on Lake Charlevoix. The line proceeded east as logging interests of the White family and others ate up forest land. With last minute financial help from auto pioneer Ransom Olds, of all people, it finally reached Alpena in 1918. This was technically the 12th cross peninsula route. (See dotted red line on map below).
There remains a question about whether the BCG&A actually had a port connection in Alpena due to fights with the Detroit & Mackinac railway and the Fletcher paper company. But it was possible according to old maps. Rather than being a cross-peninsula shipping route, this line was just the opposite. It shipped products from the center of the peninsula to mills on both ports, and shipped millions of board feet of lumber from mills to other parts of Michigan, Chicago and Ontario. After reaching Alpena, the line was closed 10 years later when all of the pine and hardwood timber was depleted. The "final straw" occurred when the Alpena Power Company flooded the BCG&A tracks to creating Fletcher's Pond (known as Fletcher's Floodwaters). The raised right-of-way still exists below the pond and is reported to be a good fishing spot. [Station List]
In the 66 years from the incorporation of Michigan until 1903 when the Pere Marquette laid the final miles of their line directly to Chicago, eleven railroads were successful in establishing cross-peninsula lines in Michigan or just below the state's boundary. Six arrived directly into Chicago by land, and five utilized lake freighters to reach Milwaukee and northern ports in Wisconsin along Lake Michigan.
At least four planned cross-peninsula lines resulted in "catch-and-kill" operations, the result of financial trouble, fear of competition, stock manipulation, and cancelled plans. All became branch lines of the five dominant railroads (Michigan Central, Lake Shore, Grand Trunk, Pere Marquette and the Wabash).
There were dozens of other schemes to cross the state which never came to fruition beyond incorporation or laying a few miles of track.
By the peak of the railroad network in Michigan around 1916, no additional cross-peninsular lines were planned or built.
Today, only four continue to exist and only two have substantial freight traffic. None use railroad car ferries.
This article would have been impossible to write without the research and books written by historian Graydon Meints. Don was a friend and mentor, and he was a GOAT: "Greatest Of All Time" - for documenting railroad history in Michigan. [MRL][MRRC]
1837. Central line begins in Detroit towards Chicago.
1837. Southern line begins in Monroe towards Chicago.
1844. Southern line leases the E&K to Toledo.
1852. The MS&NI (former Southern Line) and MC (former Central Line) reach Chicago.
1857. MS&NI begins Air Line through northern Ohio and Indiana.
1858. Detroit & Milwaukee builds from Detroit towards Grand Haven.
1871-3. Three "catch and kill" attempts begin. Never made it.
1878. Flint & Pere Marquette completes line from Toledo to Ludington via Flint.
1881-2. Mackinac Transportation Co. ferry begins. GT builds across peninsula. Wabash built.
1889. Ann Arbor is completed from Toledo to Elberta, Frankfort.
1903. Pere Marquette puts together final route to Chicago from Detroit.
The following sources are utilized in this website. [SOURCE-YEAR-MMDD-PG]:
