Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

LANSING TOWNSHIP AND 'CITY, WITH HISTORY

549

PLENTY OF MUD.
No wonder, taking account of the mud, mud, mud, that was
everywhere in Lansing in those days, that it required fully 55
minutes froin the Benton House. The 'bus was very necessary.
Like the "Toonerville trolley," it met all trains. But all the
trains were not many. The train left in the morning at 10:55 for
Owosso, where connection was made with trains of the old Detroit & Milwaukee road, east and west.
In the afternoon, the train for Lansing, according to an official
announcement printed in the State Republican of Jan. 1, 1861,
was to leave Owosso at 2:15 p. m., or as soon as the mail from Detroit was in, and arrive at Lansing at 5 o'clock. These were the
two trains a day, one out and one in, the 'bus was required to meet.
The first railroad into Lansing was known as the Amboy, Lansing & Traverse Bay Railroad, but so far as everyday reference to
it is concerned, both in the newspaper and by word of mouth, it
was always the "Ram's Horn." The notion we get and the testimony we get from the old-timers is that the road was just as
crooked as that.
But that name-Amboy, Lansing & Traverse Bay Railroadthere is a story just in that, but it is so much a story of itself that
it will have to wait until another time. In the name is bound up
a whole chapter-now wholly forgotten except to the archivistof early Michigan railroad policy. But let that story wait for the
present.
Here is a human interest story of "great expectations'? told in
the dry formula of the records of the circuit court of the United
States for the eastern district, file No. 1,259. Let your imagination run a little and you can make this old record live again in
terms of human ambitions, expectations and disappointments in
Lansing over half a century ago. The State Journal is indebted
to Edmund O. Calkins, statistician of the Public Utilities Commission. The old court record says:
BATH GETS PRESENT.
"Deposition of David Gould, managing agent of the Amboy,
Lansing & Traverse Railroad.
"The railroad was begun at Owosso and completed to Laings