Across the Water

Stony Island, across the water and quiet now, was a busy place in the past. In the 1870s, when Canada Southern Railroad built a railway to Canada, trains ran on tracks where Grosse Ile Parkway is now and over a bridge to Stony Island. Trains were loaded onto ferries to cross to Canada for travel eastward. Later, from 1908 to 1912, workers lived on Stony Island while digging the Livingstone Channel in the Detroit River. Many of these workers lived with their families in a temporary town with a church, school and store. A passenger train once fell off the Stony Island ferry dock, and all passengers were rescued.

Michigan · United States