Marshall, the next important station, is a pleasant little town, the county seat of Calhoun county, with some manufacturing interests, and considerable wealth, being the center of a large and prosperous agricultural district. It is widely known among travelers as the dining station of the Michigan Central Railroad. The day trains still make their stops here for dinner, and the hours of midday are among the liveliest the people of this quiet place witness. It is the boast of the managers of the dining-rooms that a failure to provide chicken pie for their guests has occurred but once in seventeen years, although fabulous prices often have to be paid for the feathered bipeds to perpetuate the time-honored custom.
The Tontine, Forbes and Tremont Houses are the principal hotels.
Albion is the next town of much importance in our journey, and is really a thriving place, some of its manufactures being widely known. It is also the seat of Albion College, a flourishing denominational school, under the management of the Methodists. Our road here intersects the Lansing division of the Lake Shore Railway. The principal hotels of Albion are the Commercial and the Albion House.
Our next important station is Jackson, the largest city in the interior of the State. As the central point of heavy railroad interests, important manufactures, and extensive commercial enterprises, the city is well known. The State prison is located here, and is of itself a manufacturing establishment of no little importance. The railroad shops of the Michigan Central give employment to nearly a thousand men, and thus contribute largely to the city’s prosperity. The mineral resources of the vicinity are of no small magnitude, comprising coal, salt, fire clay, etc.
It is the terminus of the Grand River Valley, Air Line, and Saginaw divisions of the Michigan Central Railroad and the Fort Wayne and Jackson branches of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. Passengers change here for the pleasure resorts of northern Michigan, via the Mackinaw Division of the Central, with which connection is made at Bay City.
The Hibbard House, the Hurd House, the Commercial, and several smaller hotels, take good care of travelers who have occasion to tarry in Jackson.
Thirty-eight miles west of Detroit, the train halts at Ann Arbor, the county seat of Washtenaw county, which has a resident population of about ten thousand, not including the students of the State University, which number nearly fifteen hundred. The city is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Huron River, its streets being wide, finely laid out, and adorned with shade trees. The Toledo, Ann Arbor & Grand Trunk Railway gives the place a north and south business outlet, while the Central takes care of the east and west business. The Huron River furnishes excellent water power, and the flourishing industries of the city show how well it is improved.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
In addition to all these, its reputation as an educational center places it among the most important of Michigan cities. Its local public schools are of a high order of excellence, especially its High School, which occupies an elegant building costing $50,000. But its chief importance in this respect is from the fact of its being the seat of the University of Michigan, with its departments of literature, science and arts, law, medicine, pharmacy, dental surgery, and engineering. This institution has almost a world-wide reputation as one of the foremost schools in the land, and indeed many of its students are from abroad, attracted by its fame, and the excellent facilities at their command.