May 29:  Kalamazoo's Michigan Central Station is destroyed by fire when two drunks upset a stove in a blind pig two doors away.  The fire was beyond the capabilities of the Fire Department to extinguish.  An intervening thunderstorm is credited with saving the town.  [MT]

George B. Russell and other parties secure premises on Gratiot Road in Detroit and manufacture twenty-five cars for the Detroit & Pontiac Railway.  This was the first railroad car builder west of Albany, New York.  This later becomes the Robinson, Russell & Company, and later the Detroit Car & Manufacturing Company.  [HWC]

New York Central Railroad is organized in New York.

The Michigan Southern Railroad moves it's Chicago depot to the new Rock Island Depot on Van Buren between Clark and Sherman.  Both roads share in the operation of the depot.  [AAD]

The duplex telegraph is invented.  [SAM]