Time Line - 1901

Last Year | Next Year

• January: The 42-mile Detroit & Charlevoix RR, started as a logging railroad, is incorporated as a common carrier.  At one time, the D&C was reputed to be the longest railroad in Michigan owned by one person. [MDOT]

• January 25: The Port Huron Southern RR (later Port Huron & Detroit RR) was chartered. [MDOT]

• March 29: Harbor Springs Railway opens 2' 6" line from Harbor Springs to Cross Village. Abandoned in 1910.  [MRRC]

• April 8: LSMS Train No. 63 was robbed at Durham, near LaPorte. A brakeman, using a railroad detective's gun, shot one of the intruders. They were taken to jail.  [LS]

• May 11: The Mineral Range Railroad reduces the round trip rate to 50 cents between Houghton/Hancock and Calumet next Monday afternoon, for the matinee performance of "She Stoops to Conquer", at the Calumet theatre. The newspaper also reports that the Calumet Theatre is the finest play house in Michigan.  [CCEN]

• June 4: Eight miners die in a dynamite explosion in the Chapin Mine in Iron Mountain.

• June 7: The Lake Shore completes the last of its double tracking project between Chicago and Toledo. The last section to be completed was between Ligonier and Brimfield, Indiana. [LS]

• July, 1901: The Pere Marquette declines to reduce fares for clergy. [RA-1901-0712:25]

• July 20: The street car operation in the Calumet area begins to transport passengers, with cars running every half your from Fifth Street in Red Jacket, to East Houghton. The paper reports that every car carried a good crowd and last evening the cars wee packed with "all classes" of people anxious to take their first ride over the new line. To many, it was their first ride ever on any street car.  The news reports the cars to be "large and electric lighted". People lined the streets on both sides "trying to convince themselves that the long-promised street car service was at last an actual fact and not a fancy of their imagination". [CCEN]

• July 27: A street railway car killed a cow owned by Gustav Ernastl at Osceola (near Calumet). The track runs through the cow pasture after it leaves the Hecla & Torch Lake railway track. [CCEN]

• September 16: Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad completes line from Frederic to East Jordan. [MRRC]

• October 1: East Jordan & Southern completes line from East Jordan to Bellaire. [MRRC]

• November: Kinnear track pans east of Dexter on the Michigan Central RR, the state's first track pan installation, began operation. Track pans permitted a speeding locomotive to scoop up water without stopping.  The MCRR was the only railroad in Michigan to install track pans. [MDOT]

• November 27: A head-on collision on the Wabash Railroad near Seneca (in Lenawee County) killed 24 persons. [MDOT]

• December 1: The Detroit & Mackinac Ry. opens its Harrisville cut off, bringing the main line closer to Lake Huron and running it through Alcona County's seat of government. [GW/DMAR-1901]

• December 1: Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw - CK&S - completes Kalamazoo to Pavilion line.  [IT-12/79]

• December 28: The Escanaba & Lake Superior Railway starts regular service between Escanaba and Channing. [MDOT]

• Onaway & North Michigan Ry. builds 5.5 mile line in and around Onaway. [NK]

• Caro and Lake Huron Railroad opens line from Caro to Owendale. [MRRC]

• A connection is constructed between the LS&I and the Munising, Marquette and Southeastern is built (?)  [AAD]

• The Mason and Oceana Railroad builds an extension to Goodrich. [AAD]

• The Copper Range Railroad extends its Mill Mine-Painesdale line 12 miles to Freda. The line is used to transport copper rock from the newly-opened Trimountain and Champion Mines to the stamp mills at Beacon Hill, Freda and Redridge.  [CRAR]

• The Pere Marquette builds from Greenville to Stanton. [PM45]

• Pere Marquette puts car ferry Pere Marquette 17 into Lake Michigan service. [PMHS]

• By 1901, the Michigan Central's Ogden branch (on the Gladwin Branch) has been abandoned north of Bentley.  [NK]

• Pere Marquette builds new 12-stall roundhouse in Saginaw. [PMHS]

• Pere Marquette builds depot at Petosky.  Depot continues to exist into 2001. [IT-12/1974]

• Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic builds depot at Marquette. Depot continues to exist into 2001. [IT-12/1974]

• CK&S builds roundhouses at Kalamazoo (6 stalls) and Woodbury (2 stalls). [NYC-2/1989]

• Interurban railway lines consolidated as Detroit United Railway System. [DWS]

• Michigan Central builds first track pan east of Dexter. Called Kinnear Track Pans, named after Wilson Kinnear, Chief Engineer of the Michigan Central. [MHS]

• Lake Shore & Michigan Southern builds depot at Lenawee Junction.  Depot continues to exist into 1974.  [IT-12/1974]

• H. K. McHarg, a Director of the Wabash Railroad, begins buying up all available Detroit & Mackinac stock.  It is feared that the "Gould interests" are moving in on the D&M but McHarg ultimately ends up running it himself.  [WK]

• Mechanical coal stokers first used.  [STOV]

• Locomotives on the Boyne Falls & Northeastern railroad will be equipped with telephones in such a manner that train crews can talk from anywhere along the line. [DFP-1901-1227]

• The Lima Locomotive Works is reorganized from the Lima Machine Works. [SAM]

• The American Locomotive Company is formed by the merger of the Schenectady Locomotive Works, Brooks Locomotive Works, Danforth, Cooke & Co., Machine Company, Dickson Manufacturing Company, Manchester Locomotive Works, and the Richmond Locomotive Works.  [SAM]

• The D&M installs a new bridge over the AuGres River on their Prescott Division. The new bridge is made of 192 feet of pile trestle and 60 feet of steel girder. It takes the place of the old bridge and high trestle of 452 feet in length, which was erected when the road was built to Alger in 1883.  [DMAR-1901]

• The D&M adds a brick coach repair shop (59' by 90') in Tawas which was required to maintain their passenger equipment. The machine shop was also enlarged by a brick addition of 20' by 58'.  An air plant was put in, consisting of an air compressor and air pipes for running air drills and other air machinery.

• At Tawas shops there has been built a brick coach repair. shop, 59 feet by 90 feet, which was required to keep up the passenger equipment. The machine shop was also enlarged by a brick addition 20 feet by 58 feet. In order to facilitate the handling of work in the Tawas shop, an air plant was put in, consisting of air compressor and air pipes for running air drills and other air machinery. Fence built during the year, 15 miles 126 rods.

• 254 people were killed as a result of railroad accidents in Michigan, the highest toll yet. [MCR-1902]

 Time line Key:

• Railroad event in Michigan
• Event relating to mining
• Event related to car ferries
• Event outside of Michigan
• Improvement in Technology
• Railroad built or extended
• Railroad abandoned and/or removed
• Economic panic or depression