Mike, thanks for these pictures. I made use of the Brush Street Station once, coming in from Chicago on the evening train in September of 1969. The next morning, I walked over to get a good look at the station before leaving for Washington on the George Washington (I had to change in Huntington).
Johnny, thanks for commenting on this and the Union Depot thread. I’m glad somebody remembers these stations. Probably helps to be over 40, although not necessarily. I think I passed through Detroit on Penn Central from South Bend to New York in 1968. I can’t remember anything except learning that the club car would be dry in Ontario.
Here’s some history.
Contracts were let for the building of the line of the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad in the spring of 1836. The original company formed to build this line had been incorporated as early as 1830 and again incorporated under the terms of a reorganization in 1834. A year later this last corporation was given authority to establish what was known as the Bank of Pontiac, which it was thought would facilitate the financing of the enterprise. Only after the state had loaned the company one hundred thousand dollars in 1838, however, was any part of the line in operation. During this year the track-the timber and strap-iron affair characteristic of all the early roads- reached Royal Oak. A year later Birmingham was reached, but not until four years later were trains run into Pontiac…
As the people of Detroit and of Michigan generally were anxious to promote in every way the interests of the new railroads, the companies entering Detroit were granted every privilege. The Pontiac line was allowed to run its cars down Dequindre street and the Gratiot road to a station situated near the present site of the Detroit Opera House, while the Michigan Central Company was granted the use of the Chicago road, Michigan Avenue, and a station site on the southeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Griswold Street, on the present city hall site. The Pontiac company, however, made itself objectionable to Gratiot Avenue property owners by neglecting to make passable that part of Gratiot not occupied by its tracks. After several orders of the council directing the company to remedy the evil had been ignored, the citizens took the matter into their own
You may like to see some of these too from our family collection.
1962 Brush Street Depot.
Dan
Nice photos, Mike; wish I could figure out which building is the station in the first aerial photo. In 1960, I came into Dearborn Station on the Santa Fe and used the Grand Trunk to get to Detroit to pick up a new Dodge station wagon.
First and only time I used either station.
Dan, that’s a great picture, thanks for posting.
Art, the station is in the lower left corner of the aerial photo.
Mike