Indian Trails, Roads, and Trains

Indian Trails, Roads, and Trains. . Native Americans came from the northeast down the Pontiac Trail from the east down the Broadway hill following a trail that went through what later became Plymouth, and from the southeast up the Huron River along the Potawatomi Trail from what became Ypsilanti. These trails joined at the river, followed along Allen's Creek to the bluffs of what became West Park, and from there along the Potawatomi and other trails to the western part of Michigan., Anishinaabe includes Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa tribes who all lived in this region., Athough Ann Arbor was first settled near Main and Huron in 1824, by 1826 Lower Town began attracting settlers. More came after the first wood bridge over the Huron River was built in 1828., Inset photo: A joyful multitude greeted the arrival of the first train to Ann Arbor in October of 1839. Anson Brown's brother Daniel had been very influential in bringing the Michigan Central Railroad to the village. In Lower Town, Rev. Thomas Holmes, then teaching school in the Baptist meeting house on Wall Street, canceled classes to view the event. He marched his band of children to the front yard of what had been Anson Brown's home on the top of the hill overlooking the grist mill and the Exchange Block. One student later lamented, "Why did he not take us to the station, if he wanted to give us a treat, instead of to a hill a quarter of a mile away?"