

333 



them by the Legislature incorporating them a company under the style 

 of the Michigan Central Railroad Company. 



MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD. 



The design of the State was to make a road across the Peninsula, 

 only from Detroit to Lake Michigan; but it was at once apparent to 

 the new owners, that with the great and growing west beyond, the ulti- 

 mate interest of the stockholders — though perhaps tempoiarily suffer- 

 ing — would be promoted by the construction of a more permanent 

 ivork, of large capacity, and its extension through the State of Indiana, 

 to Chicago, in Illinois. The charter of the company gave them ample 

 power to extend their road through this State, and the company soon 

 made arrangements with the New Alt^any and Salem Railroad Com- 

 pany to use their right to build a road from Michigan City to the State 

 line of Illinois, and with the Illinois Central Railroad Compan}-, where- 

 by they were enabled to reach Chicago, which they accomplished in 

 1852. At Chicago the road connects with nearly 1,500 miles of rail- 

 way, and their extensive steamboat connections. 



The Michigan Central Railroad also now connects with the Joliet 

 and Northern Indiana Road at Lake Station, 35 miles east of Chicago, 

 by which arrangement passengers from St. Louis, can be set down in 

 New York in about forty-eight hours, and freight can be transported be- 

 tween Detroit and the Mississippi River without breaking bulk on the 

 route. At Detroit, the Michigan Central Road connects with the Great 

 Western Railway, Irom Detroit to Niagara, through Canada West, and 

 with their own line of magnificent steamers on Lake Erie, which pass 

 down the north shore of the Lake, going through without stopping, in 

 15 hours. 



They run four passenger trains through from Detroit to Chicago, 

 daily, and one accommodation train from Detroit to Kalamazoo, 143 

 miles daily. 



The aggregate number of passengers conveyed on the road during the 

 year ending May 3 1st, 1855, was 503,774, (being 145,838 more thau 

 the year previous,) making a daily average of nearly IVOO. The ag- 

 gregate number of tons of freight moved on the road during the same 

 time was 241,825, being an increase over the year previous of ■25,vi65 

 tons. The earnings of the road for the same time amounted to the 



