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 The First Highway |
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The newly established Michigan Road would become the main transportation route for trade goods over land. The road measured one hundred feet wide and ran the entire length of the state. It would become the Interstate-65 of its day. It started down south at Marion on the Ohio River and terminated at Lake Michigan. Conceived in 1826, the new road meant that the farmers living on the Indiana-Kentucky border would now a have a way to export bulk products via Lake Michigan or to send them over land by the railroad at Michigan City. As the road headed north through the capital in Indianapolis, it crossed and joined with the east-west National Road coming in from Maryland on the eastern seaboard. |
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| The Endless Forest |
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The first people that settled the area of northern Indiana soon discovered an abundant natural resource available for the taking—timber. There seemed to be an endless forest at their disposal that could be cut down to build Michigan City and the ever expanding homes and towns surrounding it. It is said that some of the best lumber Indiana ever produced came from this area. It extended from the present day border of Illinois to the Ohio State line. It stretched back inland fifteen miles from the Lake Michigan shoreline. Trees of every type grew there; the very best, hardwoods and softwoods of all kinds. Lumbermen estimated that some of these giants towered 150 feet into the air and reached 20 feet in diameter. They were cut down for profit until there was nothing left but stumps. |
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The Michigan Road would become the main trade route through Indianapolis from Madison
in the
south to Michigan City in the north
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