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Roads, Rails and Waterways
 During the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Michigan factories needed raw materials and ways to ship products to buyers, but the
state's roads were a weak link in the transportation process. Personal travel was
difficult, and hauling heavy loads was almost impossible through the mud in spring and
fall. Fortunately, the Great Lakes and natural harbors made shipping via water convenient,
and railroads were growing.
Michigan's earliest communities were located on the lake
shores. Some were already shipping ports for iron or copper; others were sites of sawmills
for the lumbering industry. Steel-hulled steamers were replacing sailing ships to
transport bulk cargoes of iron ore, copper ingots, lumber and more. This busy harbor scene
is at Detroit's waterfront.
 
Port cities connected to inland
communities via a growing railroad network. Michigan had only 800 miles of railroad track
in 1860. The need for men and goods during the Civil War spurred railroad growth. The need
to ship agricultural and manufactured products encouraged still more development. By 1900
Michigan had 10,848 miles of track, including sidings and yard tracks. In 1891 a railroad
tunnel under the St. Clair River connected Michigan to Canada. Railroad car ferries
connected Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas at the Straits of Mackinac year-round
beginning in 1888 and the states of Michigan and Wisconsin starting in 1892.
An invention by a Michigan man helped the growth of the railroad
industry considerably at this time. Elijah McCoy (1843-1929) invented an automatic oiling
device that let a machine be lubricated while it was moving. McCoy was born in Canada, the
son of escaped slaves who had come north on the Underground Railroad. While he was a child,
they moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan, and his father worked in the lumbering industry. They
sent Elijah to Edinburgh, Scotland, to serve an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering
when he was 15 years old. Although he became a qualified engineer, he settled for a job as
a fireman for the Michigan Central Railroad, when he could not get work as an engineer.
One of his jobs was to oil the trains' moving parts. He developed the self-oiler, which he
patented in 1872.
Among the items displayed in the
Growth of Manufacturing Gallery transportation exhibit are a railroad hand car, map of
railroad routes and carriage wheels. The wall-sized murals behind the artifacts feature
the historic road, rail and shipping photographs seen on this page.
 The
transportation exhibit also features the 700-pound cast iron anchor of the
Rockaway (its spare anchor). Built for the lumber trade, the
106-ft. scow schooner was launched in 1866. She came to the upper Great
Lakes in 1880 when purchased by lumber manufacturer Winfield Scott Gerrish.
That same year he sold the Rockaway to lumber barons William Brinen
and Thomas Monroe. They owned the Rockaway in 1891 when it sank off
South Haven in a Lake Michigan storm. The shipwreck was excavated from
1984 to 1991 by the Michigan Maritime Museum in cooperation with the
Michigan Historical Center and the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources.
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