Ann Arbor Observed: Selections from Then and Now

The Michigan Central Depot

The Michigan Central Depot When the railroad was the city’s lifeline, it was Ann Arbor’s grand entrance. The elegant 1886 Michigan Central Railroad Station at 401 Depot Street, now the Gandy Dancer restaurant, testifies to the importance of train travel a hundred years ago. No expense was spared to make this massive two-towered stone building what the Ann Arbor Register called “the finest station on the line between Buffalo and Chicago.” Access to a railroad line could mean the difference between life and death for a struggling young town in the mid-nineteenth century. Before the Michigan Central reached Ann Arbor in 1839, a trip to Detroit was a difficult all-day affair on horseback. On the train, it could be done comfortably in two and a half hours. The movement of freight improved even more dramatically. The depot swiftly became the funnel through which virtually all traffic in and out of the city passed. The Michigan Central was putting up new depots all along its route when the Ann Arbor station was built, but each had its own unique design . Ann Arbor’s was designed by Detroit architect Frederick Spier (who also designed the Kelsey Museum and St. Thomas Catholic Church) in the then-popular Richardson Romanesque style. It was built by Gearing and Sons of Detroit of glacial stones quarried from Four Mile Lake between Chelsea and Dexter and cut at Foster’s Station on Huron River Drive near Maple Road. The inside was elegant, with stained-glass windows, red oak ceilings and trim, French tile floors, and even separate waiting areas for men and women. Ivy grew up the side of the building, petunias and carnations were planted around it, and a fountain spurted at the point of a triangular garden just east of the baggage shed, where the Gandy Dancer’s valet parking lot is now. In the 1880s, gardens were considered an important element in railroad station design—after all, the station was the first impression visitors received of the town. The Railway Express office was in the smaller stone building to the west of the main station. In those days, before trucks, trains carried goods of every description, from food (for instance, bread from the Ann 81 Arbor Home Bakery was delivered to the western part of the state) to kit houses. Whole train cars were devoted to mail, which was sorted as the train moved and then thrown out onto station platforms as the train whizzed by. Mail service was often faster than it is today: a letter mailed at the Ann Arbor station in the morning could be delivered in Chicago that afternoon. Even after the automobile came into general use, people took the train for most long trips. In 1915, there were thirteen Detroit to Chicago passenger trains a day, plus other, shorter runs. Many Ann Arborites commuted daily to jobs along the route. Others used the train for excursions. Kathryn Leidy recalls day outings with friends to Hudson ’s in downtown Detroit. And of course the beginnings and endings of university semesters found the train station crowded with students, the more adventurous of whom had slid down State Street on their trunks. Celebrities and artists arrived by train and were met at the station by committees of dignitaries. Alva Sink, whose husband, Charles Sink, was head of the University Musical Society, greeted countless musicians, including Ignacy Paderewski, who arrived in 1933 in his own sleeping car. Former U-M bands director William Revelli often provided the 82 Ann Arbor Observed No amount of fine detailing—stained-glass windows, French tile floors, or even the garden and fountain—could mask the depot’s location in what was then a gritty industrial district. The dark mass looming on the left in this early postcard was the huge illuminating gas plant on Broadway. (Courtesy of Bentley Historical Library.) escort as they left; among those he saw off at the depot were Victor Borge, Meredith Willson, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, and Pablo Casals. As late as World War II, when rationing of gas and tires made car travel difficult, the depot hummed. Betty Gillan Seward, who worked as the station’s accountant during the war, remembers it as a very busy time. In addition to the regular trains, there were extras for troop transport . Art Gallagher, retired editor of the Ann Arbor News, remembers...