A few weeks ago, I was going out I-74 on my way to the Chicken Inn in Shelbyville when traffic slowed and came to an abrupt halt due to construction. After sitting for what my stomach thought was well past dinner time and approaching supper, the traffic began to move, and I resumed my drive to the Chicken Inn and a delicious meal. While sitting in traffic I thought it was too bad that this portion of the interstate had been built over the old Michigan Road rather than parallel to it like I-70 is to the National Road. It certainly would have alleviated I-74 snags like this one and made for contented motorists.
Driving back to Indianapolis on I-74, the interstate does run parallel to Southeastern Avenue, the name given to that portion of the Michigan Road as it enters the southeast corner of Marion County, and, for all intents and purposes, the super highway ends as it merges with Southeastern Ave. just east of Arlington Ave. (signage directs the motorist to get on I-465 to continue around Indianapolis to pick up I-74 on the west side). Five miles further west on Southeastern Ave., the old Michigan Road intersects with the National Road (Washington St), and at this site in 1916, during Indiana’s centennial celebration, the Cornelia Cole Fairbanks Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) unveiled a bronze marker mounted on a granite obelisk commemorating the two historic roads over which “came many of the pioneers, who, by their courage and industry founded the great commonwealth of Indiana.”
Unlike the National Road, the Michigan Road is not an unbroken thoroughfare across Marion County. From the intersection of Southeastern Ave. and Washington St., a traveler must go west on Washington to West St. and then proceed north on West St. Prior to recent west side development and reconfiguration of streets, West St. intersected North St. and the Michigan Road, known as Northwestern Ave., proceeded beyond this point. Today, Northwestern Ave., renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. (Dr MLK Jr. St.), becomes Michigan Road beyond 38th St.
The Michigan Road was conceived in 1826 when the Potawatomi and Miami ceded their lands between the Wabash River and Lake Michigan to the United States and the following year Congress authorized “the State of Indiana to locate and make a road.” Acting on this, the Indiana legislature provided “for surveying and making the road from Lake Michigan to Indianapolis.” Work, however, was delayed until 1830 as the legislature haggled over what city on the Ohio River would be the southern terminus of the road from Indianapolis. Finally, Madison, the largest Indiana city at the time on the Ohio, was selected.
For the northern portion of the Michigan Road, the most direct route was a trail used by Native Americans across the swampy prairies and marshes between the Kankakee and Wabash rivers. Known as the Yellow River Trail, this route crossed terrain that wasn’t practical for a road. To bypass this obstacle, the road was laid out beginning at the mouth of Trail Creek in what is now Michigan City and continuing east to the south bend of the St. Joseph River where a town named for this feature of the river was laid out in 1831. From this point, the road, a 100-foot-wide swath hacked through dense forest, trees being cut down and underbrush being grubbed out, proceeded south by way of Logansport and Kirklin to Indianapolis and on by way of Shelbyville and Versailles to Madison.
The Michigan Road was “practically completed and nominally opened” along its 234-mile length from the Ohio River to Lake Michigan by 1834. Because of revenue received from land grants along the route, it was built without cost to the state of Indiana. Despite it being “a very rough road and barely fit for travel,” the Michigan Road provided a route for settlers seeking homesteads in the northern part of the state and a commercial thoroughfare for products seeking markets via the Ohio. For eight months of the year, it was passable, but during the winter “’tis an endless stream of black mud.” One observer later wrote, “Indiana…was regarded as the headquarters of profanity…For this widespread evil and wickedness…the roads of this state, more than any other single cause, were responsible.” And so, it continues to this day.
The heavily traveled road required constant maintenance and following the Civil War the state granted a franchise to private companies to operate a toll road along portions of the Michigan Road. In northwestern Marion County, the Armstrong Gravel Road Co. and the Augusta Gravel Road Co. controlled twelve miles of the Michigan Road and managed toll gates that travelers had to pass through before leaving the county. One of the Augusta Gravel Road Co.’s toll houses stands today at 4702 Michigan Rd, its location marked by a state historic marker.
By the mid-1890s, the northwest section of the Michigan Road in Marion County had become a free thoroughfare once again. With its hills and valleys, this “hard, firm gravel road, which is in excellent condition” became a popular route among experienced cyclists. North of the bridge spanning White River was the “banner hill of them all, a long, steep…grade that will try the mettle of any rider.” Later, with the coming of the automobile, this hill — Michigan Hill — was a “very worthy incline” car makers used to demonstrate the “power of their cars as climbers.”
Gradually the Michigan Road was paved, and it became a broad, fast highway. Sections of the route were numbered to provide the motorist an ordered way to travel from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River. U.S. 20 and Indiana 2 follow the pioneer highway from Michigan City to South Bend. Proceeding on to Rochester, the old road is U.S. 31 and then Indiana 25 into Logansport at the confluence of the Eel and Wabash rivers. From the City of Bridges, Indiana 29 takes the traveler to Indianapolis; and continuing from the Hoosier Capital, the Michigan Road carried this designation through Shelbyville and Greensburg to Madison until 1950 when this historic southern portion of the road was renumbered U.S. 421.
Today, the Michigan Road is substantially intact and may be traveled by following highway signage and unique “Michigan Road Historic Byway 1829” markers placed by the Historic Michigan Road Association. For more information on exploring Indiana’s Pioneer Highway go to historicmichiganroad.org.