USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 17
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The Buffalo and Mississippi had been incorporated in 1835, and in 1846 a change in its charter authorized it to pass to Chicago, through Michigan City ; at this date nearly or quite half of the capital stock was owned by residents of Michigan City, but, to aid in the reor- ganization of the company, this had been donated and the road was leased to the Michigan Southern. The name had then been changed in 1837 to the North- ern Indiana. This twisted and amended charter the Michigan Southern seized and used for its own purposes to reach Chi- cago away from any lake connection, in spite of the protests of the citizens of Michigan City, who showed how the charter and good faith were being vio- lated, petitioning the legislature not to legalize the change, adding that "there is no other town in Indiana on the lake, and a good commercial town will grow
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up here if it is properly and reasonably protected, but that our citizens have struggled against adversity for a long time." By building and improving the harbor they insisted that they had a right to ask justice, and "we ask that we may not be forgotten and abandoned in the contest," which was then going on be- tween several railroads over the question of a route.
Their rational request was, however, of no avail, and the Michigan Southern, to the delight of the citizens of LaPorte, rushed construction westward away from Michigan City, so that on February 20, 1852, the first train reached Chicago from Toledo by the LaPorte route.
The people of Michigan City, how- ever, were not cast down or discouraged for more than the moment. When they saw that their rival presumed to claim that they were defeated, they went gal- lantly to work on another project. The city council granted the Michigan Cen- tral the right to lay tracks on certain (not all) streets of the city. They had petitioned the legislature to compel the Northern Indiana to come to the shores of Lake Michigan, they had invoked the aid of the governor, of the state's attor- ney and of the prosecuting attorney, and had willingly met the cost of $1000.00 for this assertion of their rights; but now they would act for themselves. They were determined to overcome the appar- ent gains of the Michigan Southern, and to help the Michigan Central ; they re- fused to acknowledge the claims of the Southern that it had the exclusive right to enter Chicago around the head of Lake Michigan, and that other lines must use its roadbed from the Indian boundary, and they set their wits to work to accomplish their end. Chicago was with them because she felt that Michi- gan City had been unjustly treated, and because the more roads the more traffic, and Senator Douglas used the force of his
logic to support them. This same Buf- falo and Mississippi still had power to construct a line from Michigan City eastward to the Michigan state boun- dary, and the people of Michigan City still had influence, because, in 1851, John R. Barnes and George Ames of Michi- gan City had been added to the list of newer incorporators of the now existing Northern Indiana railroad, so that the arrangement completed in 1849 by which the Michigan Central railroad, on the old charter, might build from New Buffalo to Michigan City, could be and was en- forced. Thus in 1852, the Michigan Cen- tral railroad entered Michigan City on its own tracks. There remained only a short interval between Michigan City and Chicago, after the Michigan Central in 1851 had purchased its right of way through Michigan City. Of all the char- ters so freely passed by the early legis- latures before the panic of 1837, almost the oldest was the nearly forgotten New Albany and Salem of 1832, which yet had existence and allowed nearly any construction in northern Indiana. This charter was used by the Michigan Cen- tral and its allies to carry them over some nearly abandoned grading, as far as Kensington ; here they met the main line of the Illinois Central with which a contract was signed to permit the en- trance of trains from the Michigan Cen- tral ; and finally, on May 21, 1852, only three months after the supposed victory of the LaPorte people, connection from Detroit and the east through Michigan City became an accomplished fact.
The rivalry did not cease then, how- ever, nor for years after; the railroads rather encouraged it, and pretended to forget each other's existence, but a fear- ful accident due to carelessness, on April 25, 1853, at Grand Crossing, in which trains on the Michigan Southern and Michigan Central crashed together with the destruction of 18 passengers and the
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injury of 50 others, compelled a legal recognition of each other's rights and re- sponsibilities. For years this competi- tion was maintained, however, till Cor- nelius Vanderbilt, the owner of both, consolidated the two in 1869.
Several little incidents must be noticed here, as indicative of the character of the time. After the Michigan Southern had acquired and was using its right of way over the old Buffalo and Mississippi road from Chicago to Michigan City, there were a few weeks during which passengers were obliged either to go on to New Buffalo to meet the rival road, or to take stage across to LaPorte. This feature of travel was overcome as soon as the Michigan Southern completed its track around Michigan City, but while it lasted the firm of Sprague and Teall carried passengers in their stages through the woods, the east bound travelers stay- ing for the night at LaPorte, and those west bound at Michigan City. In those days too, they had first and second class passenger coaches, as such were adver- tised from Chicago in the Transcript of 1854.
It is regrettable that we cannot find out the exact date on which the first train from New Buffalo entered Michi- gan City, but no record of it has been kept. Neither are we sure how much of the original construction of the New Al- bany and Salem railroad was used by the Michigan Central in its rush to Chicago. It is known that the tracks of the Michi- gan Southern (and Northern Indiana) railroad ran along Wabash street, but after that road made its cut, across from LaPorte, these tracks were abandoned.
It is a curious tradition that, on July 4, 1837, nine years after the first spike on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was driven in Baltimore, Daniel Webster stood at the foot of Hoosier Slide and predicted the growth of Michigan City, when the first dirt was turned on the
Wabash street roadbed.
Of the numerous charters and corpor- ations which contained the names of Michigan City in their titles or were authorized to have a terminal point on Lake Michigan, not many survived. A few were used but only to serve as the foundation for other lines in the con - struction of which, after the great tri- umph of the Michigan Central, the orig- inal purpose was lost.
These beginning days of railroad life in Michigan City somewhat severed the bond that attached the pioneers to Indi- ana. Business began to flow east and west rather than north and south, while the rest of the state remained unconnect- ed with the lake port. It was the nat- ural consequence of rapid transit, which we must remember is nothing new, for even in 1849, in England a train had at- tained 78 miles an hour, and we must not forget that for all the seeming crudi- ty of the first engines and cars in the United States, speed, hitherto unattain- able, was developed. J. C. Showerman, an old time Michigan Central telegraph- er, tells that even when the engines burn- ed wood and were pigmies compared with the leviathans of today, they made the schedule from Chicago to Detroit in seven hours and fifteen minutes, in spite of light rails and crooked tracks. More- over, the telegraph had arrived in 1847, as on July 20 of that year the council had granted permission to the Erie and Michigan Telegraph company to string its wires into the city, and with this ad- junct business along the railroad nat- urally increased.
The south railroads were not slow in coming. Another road the objective point of which was Michigan City, was the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago railroad. It had been deflected toward Chicago at Monon, and consequently re- ceived that name, "The Monon Route," as a shorter title, but its real purpose was
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
to reach Lake Michigan within Indiana territory. This it finally accomplished in 1853, shortly after the Michigan Cen- tral ran trains. This New Albany and Salem had at that time the longest stretch of straight track in the country, run- ning seventy miles without a curve. Its name was changed in 1897 to the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louis- ville railroad and in 1902 it passed under the control of the Louisville and
ed its terminal point at the head of Lake Michigan. It was at first under inde- pendent management, then it came into the control of other holders. The name was changed to the Lake Erie and West- ern in 1887 and today it is still known by that name, although owned and man- aged since 1900 as part of the great Van- derbilt system, the New York Central lines, by the Lake Shore railroad.
Connection with the north was for
TRINITY CATHEDRAL
Nashville and Southern Railway sys- tems, but the abbreviated Monon will always be the popular sobriquet.
The old Cincinnati, Louisville and Chicago, later the Indianapolis, Peru and Chicago railroad, was headed for Michi- gan City, and the section between La- Porte and Plymouth was built in 1858, other sections being added at irregular intervals, but it was not till 1871 that the road as we know it now finally reach-
many years made over the Michigan Central through New Buffalo, but in 1899 the Pere Marquette railroad was organized as a consolidation of the Flint and Pere Marquette railroad, the Chi- cago and West Michigan and others and in 1903 with the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railroad. The first indepen- dent train on this new system, reached Michigan City on December 15, 1903.
Michigan City is on two electric trac-
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
tion lines, in addition to having a city electric street car system that traverses Franklin street its entire length and also extends to the state prison and to East- port. The first car was run April 18, 1881. Mule and horse power were orig- inally used on the street cars, but with the advent of electricity as a motive pow- er it was adopted, in 1891, by the Lake Cities' Electric Co., which also owned the power station that furnished the city street lighting. In 1903 the Chicago and South Shore Railway Company com- pleted the construction of an interurban line from LaPorte to Michigan City, the first car being run from LaPorte to Michigan City on Jan. 31, 1903. Two years later the road and also the city system came into possession of the Northern Indiana Railway Company, which owned the interurban lines con- necting South Bend, Elkhart, Gashen and Mishawaka, and in the winter of 1907 the interurban line to LaPorte and the city system were purchased with the remainder of the Northern Indiana Rail- way Company's property by the Mur- dock-Dietrich syndicate, which during the year 1908 will complete the construc- tion of a line between LaPorte and South Bend that will enable the running of through cars from Michigan City to Warsaw. The company was renamed the Chicago, South Bend and Northern In- diana Railway Company. At this writ-
ing (1907) the Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railway Company, owned by the Hanna syndicate of Cleveland, is pushing the construction of an inter- urban line that will connect South Bend with Chicago and will pass through Bal- timore street, Michigan City. Cars will be running on this road in 1908. Michi- gan City will be the main point on the line, an immense power house, car barns. repair shops, ets., being now under con- struction, the estimated cost thereof be- ing half a million dollars.
Today (1907) the Michigan Central operates every day regularly twelve pas- senger and ten freight train each way; the 'Monon' two passenger and two freight trains : the Lake Erie and West- ern three passenger and two freight trains, and the Pere Marquette four pas- senger and two freight trains.
All trains stop at Michigan City, be- cause it is either the terminus or the division point of every system.
Michigan City has daily steamer ser- vice during the summer season between this port and Chicago. The Indiana Transportation Company, composed chiefly of Michigan City capitalists, owns and operates two large fine steam- ers, the Theodore Roosevelt and the Soo City. Passengers and freight are han- dled. A fleet of merchant vessels, be- longing to various companies, carry lum- ber, salt, coal and various other products.
CHAPTER XIII.
Trade, Business and Finance.
The French were the first traders at the head of Lake Michigan. English- men did not penetrate into this region west of the Alleghenies for the purpose of trade until 1749, although a few wan- dering explorers may have passed through here. It was La Salle with his dream of colonizing the Mississippi Val- ley who sent the earliest traders hither for the purpose of exchanging manufac- tured goods for the furs and skins of the Indians. These French pioneers knew Green Bay, the region between the Calut- met and the Kankakee, but they were nomads and have left scarcely a name or trace behind. La Taupine, Rene le Gar- deur and others knew of the woods and prairies around LaPorte, and it is record- ed that long before 1793 Indians from here traded with such posts as Vin- cennes and Detroit, for goods and whis- ky. The English introduced the whisky traffic to the Indians, but the French were not slow to learn ; the earliest crini- inal prosecutions in the courts of LaPorte county were for selling whisky to the In- dians, and their wise men felt the de- grading consequences, appealing but not always with success, to good folk like the Quakers to uphold the Indians and to help enforce the laws. From the time of the first settlement near Chicago, in 1803, when Fort Dearborn was made, there was a well known and established commerce over the adjacent territory, in- cluding Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, but it was carried on only by trappers and hunters, who made such posts as South Bend or Chicago their headquar- ters, where the American Fur Company,
established by John Jacob Astor, was ready for business. Farmers near Lake Michigan took advantage of this value of skins to help pay for their land or to use them for barter.
In 1829 a trading post at Hudson lake was in existence, and one in 1830 at Door Village. Michigan City's site had little to attract the trader, and a keener judgment than that of simple fur dealers was needed to perceive that here must center a larger traffic and a productive industry. Peltries were capital as much as they were clothing, and that was all. A new and a different incentive was neces- sary to bring permanent life to the spot, and this came soon after the first survey and location of the Michigan Road.
"In 1832," according to Abiezer Jessup, "he thought it might have been as early as June, word was brought to his father and other settlers at the Door (village) that help was desired in erecting a log house at Michigan City. A number of men went over on the day fixed. The following Sunday Abiezer and two or three other boys of the Door neighbor- hood, led by curiosity to see Michigan City and the mouth of the Dishmaugh, as it was then called, took horses and rode up there, getting lost in the path- less timber on the way. Finally arriving, they found only one house there-the cabin just raised and not yet ready for occupancy, near the creek. It be- longed to Joseph C. Orr, who, with his family and Samuel Miller, had a rough temporary camp close to the house. Mr. Jessup did not locate the house or say how many composed the family. While
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the boys were looking about the site of the proposed city ,a band of Indians ar- rived in canoes from the St. Joseph and landed on the beach at the base of Hoos- ier Slide. The boys, fearing the Indians, at once mounted and started for home, Icaving the Orr family to whatever fate might befall them." Mr. Jessup did not again see the place that year nor until the next year, 1833, when there was quite a settlement. He died at LaPorte in August, 1907.
This anecdote from an eye witness shows that the city began as a city ; that whatever trade and barter had taken place about the head of Lake Michigan, was accidental or incidental, leading to nothing definite. There had been hither- to no money in the neighborhood, pel- tries being the only medium of ex- change, and Trail Creck had been only a name, but with the coming of Elston, Miller and Orr a genuine settlement was started, the purpose of which was busi- ness and commerce and the founding of a city.
Scarcely had this start been undertak- en when effort was made to meet two wants. The first was for the accommo- dation of those traveling through the spot on their way east or west, north or south, and who desired or were compell- ed to pass the night at the foot of Hoo- sier Slide. This want was rather easily satisfied by any one possessing a roof to cover the head. Joseph C. Orr turned his house into a tavern, offering rest and refreshment to any one willing to partake of his rude sincere hospitality. To sleep on the floor, to eat fresh or jerk- ed meat, and to drink clear water re- deemed by a drop or so of whisky, was no hardship in those days, for these travelcrs were not sightseers nor tourists, but came west for a more serious pur- pose. These taverns grew in number and changed rapidly into more imposing hotels, but nearly every settler kept open
house. Thus in August, 1833, Jacob Fur- man and B. F. Bryant built a log cabin on what is now known as Peck's Corner. Licenses to vend merchandise and to keep tavern were issued by the county commissioners at this date, 1833, which cost $15.00, while to sell groceries the tax was only $10.00, but the groceries were often wet goods and the merchan- dise might usually be portable in bottles. The Michigan Road was building, a fact which attracted both traders and set- tlers, so that it was difficult to gratify all comers without the adjuncts of a tavern. Two hotels were put up in 1834 when the population was already 715. The first, situated near the harbor, by Lof- land and Taylor, the other by Samuel Olinger and Thompson Francis. Then came the Stockton House built by Hi- ram Inman on Pine street ; and before the close of 1836, the Mansion House, City Hotel, Exchange (on Sherman's corner), Farmers' Hotel, Washington House, Lake House, and the West- ern Hotel which stood out near where the State Prison is at present. The hotels were all full, the guests be- ing either actual or intending scttlers, so that three thousand persons lived within Michigan City by 1835.
The second want which the very first residents and house owners determined to meet, was that for mills. Flour was a necessity ; wheat was selling for twenty- five up to fifty cents a bushel, but it was ground in the crudest way, often as the Indians did it, between two stones, and flour cost $10.00 a barrel. Near LaPorte was a flour mill, but that was then a de- cidedly long distance away, reached only over old Indian paths. In 1834 John Walker, a large owner of timber lands in LaPorte county, built a saw mill at the site of the present Roeske mill, but it was soon after changed to a grist mill and is today called the Eureka, although old residents know it still as Scott's mill,
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
after James M. Scott, who bought the property of Walker in 1835.
Another kind of mill was also sadly needed to supply the increasing demand for lumber with which to build the houses for settlers. Lumber had been and was brought into the city by vessels on Lake Michigan, but the thick woods of Michigan township offered all the timber to anyone able to cut it. The above mentioned John Walker of La- Porte erected this first mill (1834), al- though not within the present corporate limits of Michigan City, and the nearest water mill was really built in 1832 in Springfield township, on the north branch of Trail Creek, by Charles Vail, who had been born in New Jersey in 1803, and under his father and mother, Isaac and Sarah, had been brought up as a baker .- The Andrew mill at Camp Col- fax, LaPorte, was built in 1832. As a matter of fact in these early days there was no saw nor grist mill within the cor- porate limits of Michigan City, and it was not until comparatively recent times that the city itself had such manufac- tories.
Another industry to take immediate root in the city was that of tanning. Leather came from the skins of the ani- mals so plentiful in the virgin woods roundabout, and bark was supplied by the trees at the door. Joseph C. Orr started the first tannery in 1834, actually within Michigan City, and he spent his time alternately between his tannery and his tavern. Debre Brothers were early tanners in the city, and Abbott, Bour & Company added to that business. The first one was located in what is now the very center of the business section. Much later was established the industry which gave Tannery Hill its present name.
The first trade was naturally that of the carpenter. Backwoodsmen could build a log cabin, but technical training
was necessary for the construction of a house ; so Thompson W. Francis came in 1833 to Michigan City, and after in- vestigating the possibilities of other nearby towns (LaPorte and St. Joseph ), he located permanently for carpenter work here. At Waterford, practically a part of Michigan City, there was another carpenter named N. W. Blackman who helped at the growing town in its first year.
Brickmaking was another industry that at once became active and a man named Kellogg was the first to burn brick within the city, having his yard near the second turn of the creek.
Everyone possessing technical skill was eagerly sought, and in fact a man willing to work was welcome. Peck's Guide to Emigrants for 1835 states that "All kinds of mechanical labor, especial- ly in the building line, are in great de- mand; even very coarse and common workmen get almost any price they ask. Journeymen mechanics get $2.00 per day. A carpenter or brick mason wants no other capital, to do first rate business, and soon become independent, than a set of tools and habits of industry, sobriety, decorum and enterprise."
But the great attraction which so rap- idly turned the silent sandy shores of Lake Michigan into a hustling market, was trade. The first man to begin a real business in Michigan City was Samuel Miller, who came here in 1832, started a commission store in 1833 and built the first warehouse. He was a for- warder, taking grain, provisions and pro- duce from all the neighbors who had to sell, and obtaining his sup- ply of goods from vessels plying the lakes. Shortly after him came Samuel Flint and George W. Selkirk. In 1834 William Teall, David Sprague and James Forrester reached the city and built the second warehouse and others built warehouses later. Others who
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chose Michigan City as the place for their activities were Daniel Brown and Jacob Haas, George Ames and Leonard Woods, in 1834; M. Romel, a native of Germany; Simon Ritter from Seneca county, New York; Deacon W. Peck, from New York; W. W. Higgins, from Connecticut ; Judge Woodward, a justice of the peace and the second postmaster ; Hiram and Richard Inman ; Jacob Bige- low, David Burr. Benjamin James, W. Moody, Allen James, Robert Stewart, Samuel Weston, and Chauncey B. Blair, in 1835. No record can be given of the exact dates on which many of the prom- inent merchants of the time arrived, so quickly did they come, and so immedi- ately did they begin business.
What is equally, perhaps more, to the point, is the character and the amount of the business they did. William Teail, in thirteen months of work, is said to have done $13,000.00 worth of business, and the total trade in June, 1835, amounted to $4400,000.00. In 1836 Offley W. Leeds reached Michigan City. James Forrester brought a cargo of salt on the schooner "Post Boy," the first shipment of the kind. C. B. Blair had by this time built a pier in addition to his warehouse which stood on it, and the others were near this, so as to be close to the boats as they arrived from the lake. Steamers-the Ward, Champion, George Dole and others-made regular trips on Lake Michigan, and forwarding from here extended throughout north- ern Indiana. Michigan City thus be- came in return the great grain center for all the adjacent section, and wheat was brought hither from as far south as Mar- ion county. Not only was the forward- ing trade growing, but the city prosper- ed as a retail market. At the end of 1836 there were twelve dry goods stores, and outfitting for settlers and travelers was a goodly part of any business. There was the hardware store of George and Fish-
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