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Transportation was not always as easy as it is today. The bus, train, and highway systems we have now in Ann Arbor have a long history of development, beginning almost at the settlement of the town. When the Allens and Rumseys arrived in Ann Arbor in 1824, it was a dense forest inhabited by Native Americans. Other than a few military roads built during the War of 1812, the only means of transportation were Native American trails and the Huron River. The earliest inhabitants of Michigan walked or canoed everywhere they needed to go.
As white Americans settled Ann Arbor, however, Native American trails were widened into roads and many more were quickly built. This map, drawn in 1836, shows the roads residents had built in the twelve years since settlement.
The railroad made its first appearance in Ann Arbor in the 1840s. Often in the American frontier, the route of the railroad decided whether or not a village would survive. The coming of the railroad was no small affair for Ann Arbor residents, as railroads brought goods previously unavailable, and connected Ann Arbor to larger markets. By the end of the Civil War in 1865, a solid network of dirt and rail connected the city to others across the state.
While the railroad connected Ann Arbor to more distant lands, for most of the nineteenth century locals traveled within the city with horses and carriages. However, the development of the electric streetcar in the 1880s added a new dynamic to city travel. People could go farther and faster than ever before, and both people and horses were forced to reckon with a new, automated force on the road.
No event changed the development of transportation in America more than Henry Ford's popularization of the automobile. The car changed everything—from the construction of roads to the expansion of the police force. Cars completely altered the appearance of downtown Ann Arbor, as paved roads and parking spaces replaced dirt and hitching posts. By 1914 Main Street looked more like this postcard (below).
Transportation systems often functioned together. For example, streetcar routes were designed with railroad stations and interurban links in mind. Cars, streetcars, and railroads all operated like a web connecting Ann Arbor together, to the rest of Michigan, and to the nation at large.
While the car took over the role of streetcars and interurbans during the 1930s, the airplane, first developed for transportation during the 1930s, increasingly replaced the railroad for long-distance travel. Even so, evidence of the history of these now outmoded forms of transportation in Ann Arbor is all over the city. Railroad ruins jut out into places on Main Street. Early settlers hitched their horses where you have parked your car, and electric streetcars once ran along the very streets you drive today.
Follow these links to learn more about transportation in Ann Arbor: