Dexter Depot / Track Pans

The Michigan Central Railroad reached Dexter from Detroit on July 4, 1841, just after Dexter's first depot was completed. Frederick H. Spier of Detroit designed the present depot, and work on it began on November 6, 1886; the station opened at noon on January 19, 1887. Plantings for the grounds came from railroad greenhouses at Niles and Ypsilanti, and the depot included two waiting rooms, a ticket office, and a baggage room. Passenger service at the Dexter depot ended in 1953. Two miles east of Dexter, Kinnear was the site of Michigan's first railroad track water pans, built in 1901 between the rails and heated during cold weather so steam locomotives could scoop up water while moving. The Kinnear pans and telegraph station were named after Wilson S. Kinnear, chief engineer of the Detroit River railroad tunnel, and in 1913 the pans were dismantled and moved to Four Mile Lake between Dexter and Chelsea.

Dexter, Michigan · United States