Durand’s first settlers began farming here in 1837, and its first railroad, the Detroit and Milwaukee, arrived in 1856, thirty-one years before the village was officially organized. The settlement became a railroad center for the Grand Trunk and Ann Arbor railroads, with trains running through Durand to Toledo, Grand Rapids, Clare, Chicago, Port Huron, and Detroit. Around the turn of the century, as many as thirty-five passenger trains, one hundred freight trains, and three thousand passengers used the depot each day, and its yard facilities included the only full-circle roundhouse on the Grand Trunk Western. In 1911, fifty percent of Durand’s population was employed by the Grand Trunk Western Railway Company. In June 1923, western Michigan Sir Knights traveling to the sixty-seventh annual conclave of the Grand Commandery of Michigan Knights Templar in Flint commissioned a Grand Western Trunk special train. It left on June 5, and at 9:30 A. M. came upon a split track at Clark’s Crossing in Durand. The engine and tender left the rails and turned over, and the second passenger coach rammed the first, though the rear cars remained upright. Four Knights Templar died in the accident: engineer Frank Persall and fireman Joseph Parker of Corunna Commandery No. 21 at Durand, John Erickson and Herber D. Waldron of Ionia Commandery No. 11, and A. J. Fanning of Grand Rapids also died, while thirty-two persons were injured.