partly by the Oakland and Ottawa and completed by the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway: Pontiac to Fentonville (1855).
Constructed by the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway: Pontiac to Fentonville (1855), Fentonville to Grand Haven (west side of river) (1856–58), and Ferrysburg to Grand Haven (east side of river) (1870).
Detroit and Milwaukee Detroit freight yard, circa 1857.
Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library.
Total mileage of the line was 189.73 miles.
The preceding, rather dry, listing of facts hides a lineage of corruption and collusion in the financing and construction of this line, in which the Great Western was to play a pivotal role.
View from above of the Detroit and Milwaukee Detroit passenger depot on Atwater Street, circa 1860. A broad-gauge locomotive is proceeding toward the covered train shed.
Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library.
From November 1852 to June 1855 the Canadian government made loans totalling £770,000 ($3.75 million U.S.) to the Great Western. During these years the Great Western was represented by Sir Allan MacNab, who was also the leader of the government for many years. In 1852 he moved a resolution in the Railway Committee, as set forth by the company, which aimed to give the Great Western a monopoly in the Ontario peninsula. However, the bill failed to pass; the obvious reason being the increasingly dominant position of influence of the Grand Trunk Railway at all levels of government.
Detroit and Milwaukee/Great Western Detroit freight depot in 1860.
Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library.
In 1863 Finance Minister John Rose accused the Great Western of misappropriating a total of approximately $1.225 million dollars and doing what it was never chartered to do and what it had no legal right doing — constructing a railway in the United States known as the Detroit and Milwaukee. Rose also asserted that $4 million of Great Western capital was thusly used, as well as used in building other lines and investing in steamships on Lake Michigan.
The Commercial Bank of Canada had also advanced the Detroit and Milwaukee a loan of £250,000 ($1.22 million U.S.), its value being substantially greater than this by 1863 with accumulated interest being unpaid. The bank, however, had no recourse since the Great Western had foreclosed two mortgages in 1860 against the railway. A lawsuit also failed. Charles John Brydges, a former Great Western managing director, was one of
An overview of 1869 Grand Haven taken from Dewey Hill. The Detroit and Milwaukee passenger depot is in the foreground, on the channel between the Grand River and Lake Michigan.
Loutit District Museum, Grand Haven, Michigan.
An 1875 view of the first union station in Grand Rapids located at the corner of Island (now Western) Street and South Ionia Avenue. It was built in 1870 and served two major roads, the Detroit and Milwaukee and the Grand Rapids and Indiana. A locomotive of the latter road and an unidentified passenger coach are also pictured.
Grand Rapids (Michigan) Public Library.
the Canadian directors of the Detroit and Milwaukee line with the other two being politicians (James Ferrer and William Molson). Brydges was appointed receiver and soon the Great Western bought the line for a nominal $1 million. Down went the Commercial Bank of Canada in ruin, one of Canada’s largest banks, with shockwaves reverberating across a Canadian economy already depressed by the American Civil War. The Great Western, in the meantime, was “laughing all the way to the bank.”
Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee Railway depot in Gaines, Michigan. Built in 1884, it has been lovingly restored and is currently a branch library. Note the extensive use of three-dimensional brick trim around the windows, doors, and eaves. This building “yearned to be a big stone building but lacked the budget.”
Author’s collection.
In the late 1860s the railway began to plan a relocation of the Grand Haven depot from the north side (Dewey Hill) to the south side of the Grand River at Harbour and Washington Streets. To lay track on the south side of the river, train equipment was ferried across, track was laid to the shoreline, and sand was brought into the city to make a solid bed in marshy areas. New docks were built near the depot to maintain connections with steamships plying Lake Michigan. The new depot opened January 1, 1870. Freight trains did not take advantage of the new trackage until six months later.
Detroit and Milwaukee/Flint and Pere Marquette joint depot at Holly, Michigan. Built in 1886, it is in poor condition, awaiting restoration. Like the depot in Gaines, this depot is a very functional brick cottage style which, in Europe, is called a “railroad style” or “Italian villa.”
Author’s collection.
In the year ending December 31, 1871, the Detroit and Milwaukee had thirty-four locomotives (fourteen passenger, sixteen freight, and four switchers), fifty-seven passenger cars (thirty first-class coaches, twenty baggage-mail cars, and seven emigrant or second-class coaches), 518 freight cars (330 box or stock [cattle] cars and 188 flatcars), and one auxiliary car.
In the year ending December 31, 1879, the locomotive and car inventories for the Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee (successor to the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway) were as follows:
A view of the 1869 Detroit and Milwaukee St. Johns depot after the great tornado of 1920. A new station replaced this one and is still standing, fully restored.
Clinton Northern Railway, St. Johns, Michigan.
Grand Haven Detroit and Milwaukee depot post 1869, with nearby stock pen, water tank, three-stall enginehouse, and three major hotels: the Baldwin to the far left, the Parnell to the right of the Baldwin, and the Sherman near the centre of the photograph.
Grand Rapids (Michigan) Public Library.
Map of Detroit and Milwaukee/Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee Railways in 1865.
Appleton’s Illustrated Railway and Steam Navigation Guide, 1865 edition.
Examples of Detroit and Milwaukee
