Station: St. Johns, Michigan
Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum
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Above, an early photo of the Grand Trunk Western depot in St. Johns. [Alan Loftis Collection] |
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Above, the Grand Trunk Western depot at St. Johns, Michigan, taken May, 1988 [Jim Slater] Below, GTW 5832 switches the grain elevator in St. Johns, on January 6, 1985. [Dennis Schmidt photo] |
SwitchingGrainElevatoratStJohns010685[DennisSchmidt].jpg) |
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Below, the Central Michigan pulls a freight by the St. John's Depot. October, 1988. [Gary Worrall] |
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atStJohnsCentralMichLumber10-1988-2[GaryWorrall].jpg)
In 1853, state officials examined the proposed route of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad. One of the officials purchased land at this location and laid out the village. The official's first name was "John" and a Baptist minister added the "Saint" to complete the town's name. The post office, which was originally named Bingham, was renamed in 1855. The town was designated the county seat when the D&M railroad came through in 1857. It was incorporated as a village in 1857 and as a city in 1904. [MPN]
Comment from Doug Hefty: In the mid 1960's the Grand Trunk Western had a local that ran from Durand to Grand Haven (#583) on M-W-F and returned as 584 on Tu-Th-Sat. They also ran a through train at night from Durand to Muskegon and return that handled cross-lake ferry traffic. It was sometimes referred to as the "Beer Run" because it always had several cars of beer out of Milwaukee. At that time, GTW also ran a daylight train from Durand to Muskegon and return, but I'm unsure if it ran every day. St. Johns had an operator and clerk on duty in the mid-60's. When the local was in town switching, the clerk would go a block down the tracks to an elevated crossing watchman's shanty and operate the flashers at the street crossings as the side tracks were not circuited for automatic operation. The operator at the depot would also put the train order board to red after the train went through, returning it back to green twenty minutes later, a form of train spacing back then. The Greenville local also operated on this line (trans 541 and 542) from Durand to Owosso Jct. and then onto the Ann Arbor for the run to Ashley.