The Territorial Road, Interurban, and Railroad

Surveyors in the early 1800s enlarged the St. Joseph Indian trail, originally only about a foot wide, to create the Saint Joseph Road. It soon became main east-west artery into the Michigan Territory for early settlers. People began referring to the road as the “Territorial Road” and the name stuck.

The main road as it made its way through Marshall came to be called State Street. In 1923, the State of Michigan requested that all towns on the route between Detroit and Chicago change the name of their main street to Michigan Avenue.

INTERURBAN

In 1899, Marshall was granted an interurban franchise license which allowed it to construct an electric railroad down the center of State Street that extended all the way from Battle Creek to Jackson, a distance of 47 miles. Later, that distance was extended to go from Kalamazoo to Detroit, where it connected with other electric lines. The train cars looked like trolleys or railroad freight cars and carried both passengers and freight.

A depot was built at 216-218-220 W. Michigan Avenue, where Fountain Automotive now operates. If you look at the northeast corner of their building, you will see a corner from the original depot still standing that now houses Walter’s Gasoline Museum. An interurban mural can be viewed from the parking lot, painted by Dennis McKeen in 2015 On July 1, 1929, interurban freight cars made their last trip through Marshall.

RAILROAD

Michigan Central Railroad in Marshall
The first wood-fired rail engine arrived in Marshall in 1844. It took 40 minutes to travel from Albion to Marshall, which was the end of the line for a couple of years. In 1850, the local newspaper announced that a new depot had been built because Marshall was now the central location on the route that stretched from Detroit to New Buffalo. Train engines could go no further than 100 miles at that time without overheating, so trains would stop in Marshall and have their engines switched out for fresh ones. The new depot also featured a machine shop and a lunchroom.

Chicken Pot Pie Stop
Something quickly discovered by passengers was that they could get off the train and run into the station, order a chicken pot pie, and get back on the train before it left the station. Thus, Marshall came to be known as the “Chicken Pot Pie Stop.”

Telegraph
The first telegraph office in Marshall was installed in 1845 by the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company. However, a telegraph was not installed in the railroad depot until 1856, forcing trains to run by time cards until that date.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
Originally called the Brotherhood of the Footboard, the oldest railroad union in the United States was bought into being in Marshall on May 8, 1863. The organizers were Sam and Linans Keith, Tom Nixon, Sam Anlar, Tom Faulkner, Henry Lathrop, Henry Hall, John McCurdy, J.C. Thompson, John Brown, W.O. Robinson, and Uriah Stevens.

There is a memorial to this historic union at the corner of Mansion Street and East Michigan Avenue, across from the VFW Hall.

In 1873, the rail yards moved to Jackson along with the union offices, and the trains no longer stopped in Marshall. In later years, Marshall’s roundhouse was moved to the Henry Ford Museum where it resides today.