250 RURAL MICHIGAN 



the Upper Peninsula, while the Chicago, Milwaukee 

 and St. Paul entered the same territory and reached 

 into the copper country through its connection with 

 the Copper Eange Eailroad and the South Shore. 

 The "Soo Line" Railroad was constructed east and 

 west through the southern portion of the Upper 

 Peninsula, and eventually this line and the "South 

 Shore'' fell under the control of the Canadian Pacific. 

 These railways, with their branches, and numerous 

 short independent lines built by lumbering and 

 mining companies for their own local requirements, 

 provide the railway system of the northern penin- 

 sula of Michigan. 



By 1850 Michigan had 350 miles of railroad, 

 which, according to Romanzo Adams, was five times 

 the mileage of Ohio. Steadily year by year, the 

 remoter portions of the State were brought into 

 relation with this railway network, until in 1918 

 the total railway mileage was 9,035, of which 6,762 

 miles were in the Lower and 2,273 in the Upper 

 Peninsula.^ 



In 1886 came the electric street railway, first in- 

 troduced into Michigan, it is claimed, on the streets 

 of Port Huron in that year. Four years later the 

  era of the inter-urban railway was inaugurated with 

 the establishment of the line from Ypsilanti to Ann 

 Arbor. At first the motive power was the "Porter 

 enclosed steam motor," changed to electric traction 

 in 1896.^ This new service, according to Junius E. 



^"Rept. Mich. Railroad Commission." 1918. 78. 



= "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXV, 261. 



