The Marquette Route was a slogan for the erstwhile Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette RR that was built from that lakefront city eastward towards the gateways of Sault Ste. Marie (the SOO) and St. Ignace, Michigan. While the former connected with the owner CPR's line eastwards into Canada the primary line to the Straits of Mackinac routed both freight and passenger traffic to the Michigan Central and Grand Rapids and Indiana railroads, both owned separately by the mighty New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads, respectively. A robust railcar ferry operation shuttled rail cars across the Straits for many decades, well into Soo Line and Penn Central ownership for both sets of lines leading to the docks.
The DM&M was a going concern until the Panic of 1886 finished off what was a long struggle of the road during the ongoing depression of 1882-85. The road was later absorbed into a growing Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway - a fully-owned U.S. subsidiary road of the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway - handling the transportation of iron and copper ore mining, wood products and eastward grain in the far north woods of upper Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan. Eventually, even the DSS&A would disappear into history following the 1960 consolidation of CPR's U.S. holdings into the greater Soo Line Railroad.
It could have all ended there except for a twist of history... courtesy of a timely renewal of Yours Truly's NMRA-issued "Modeler's License" and the fact-ional liberties it gives one with the revision of history. You see, about the time of the DSS&A's heyday certain New York financial interests - Vanderbilt, anyone? - were already talking about bridging the Straits to eliminate the problematic ferry operation, especially during the winter months. This continued as talk over the decades until folks in the Wolverine State started to get serious about stitching together the Upper and Lower peninsulas and retire the troublesome ferries. About that time the politicians and titans of industry started to take notice.
Early concepts for a Mackinaw Bridge - fondly known as "the Mighty Mac" in Michigan - were circulating as early as the late 1880s and picked up steam with the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the Firth of Forth Bridge in Scotland around this time. On July 1, 1888, the board of directors of the famous Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island held their first meeting and the minutes show that Cornelius Vanderbilt said: “We now have the largest, well-equipped hotel of its kind in the world for a short season business. Now what we need is a bridge across the Straits.”
What was meant back then was a bridge for the one mode of overland travel that could quickly and cheaply move both people and goods over long distances - and that was rail. Plans circulated over the years but various financial panics, wars and depressions combined to derail efforts to get anything substantial started until following the great financial collapse of 1929. Early in 1934 the matter was again revived and proposed as a suitable P.W.A. project to put Michigander's back to work and improve intra-state commerce.
In the extra session of 1934 the Michigan Legislature created the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority and empowered it to investigate the feasibility of such construction and to finance the work by issuance of revenue bonds. The Authority began its studies in May 1934 and was able to reach the conclusion that it was feasible to construct a bridge directly across the Straits at an estimated cost of not more than $32,400,000 for a combined two lane highway and one-track railway bridge between Mackinaw City to the south and St. Ignace to the north.
The Authority made two attempts between 1934 and 1936 to obtain loans and grants from the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, but the P.W.A. refused both applications despite endorsement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the report that the late President Roosevelt favored the bridge. However, what if the applications had succeeded? How would history, commerce and rail traffic have changed in Michigan? One can only imagine... or one could build this alternate reality.
To be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment