Passenger Train going over Coldwater River

The picture on this postcard is of a Michigan Central Passenger Train crossing the Coldwater River in the background. The dam on the left is on the Coldwater River with the waterway on the right flowing into the mill race for the Flour Mill. The postcard picture was postmarked 1916

.The map is a cropped section of a map of Union City found on page 18 & 19 in the "Standard Atlas of Branch County, Michigan; compiled and published by George A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1915".

Note - The top of the arrow indicates from where the picture of the train was taken (from the mill race bank looking south towards the railroad bridge that crosses the Coldwater River.

Peerless Portland Cement Factory - #1

Peerless Portland Cement Factory - #2

Peerless Portland Cement Train - The Daisy

Birds Eye View of Downtown and Peerless Factory

Michigan Central Railroad Depot - #3

The railroad passenger depot located on Michigan Central Railroad Line on Railroad Street, about 1910. People awaiting the arrival of a passenger train coming into Union City. The Peerless Cement Factory smoke stacks are in the background of the picture. There is no postmark on the postcard.

Note - Regarding the Michigan Central Airline Railroad...(from the publication titled "Historical Industrial and Social Record of Peerless Union City Michigan" edited, compiled, and published by Tom F. Robinson in March 1903), EARLY HISTORY OF UNION CITY, reads: ....The project of a ship canal through this portion of the state found many warm advocates in Union City from 1837 to 1855, as one of the routes considered most favorable was the utilization of the St. Joseph River from Lake Michigan to this place and then by canal by the way of Homer and across the counties of Jackson and Washtenaw to the Huron River at Dexter. Several official surveys were made and their practicability assured, but as the population and wealth of this section was not at this time large, and the estimated expense of the proposed water way a goodly sum, nothing came of it. At the time the main lines of the Michigan Central and Michigan Southern Railways were constructed across the state, Union city had the opportunity of securing either one or the other of them, the Michigan Central, in fact, making a survey through here, but the idea of the ship canal overshadowed everything else and the opportunity was neglected. Then when the canal idea was abandoned, it seemed for a time that Union City was doomed to remain cut off from means of speedy and convenient communications with the outside world. Finally, late in the sixties, the Air Line Railroad project was pushed to a successful completion, and in the fall of 1870 mixed trains were run over the road, followed by regular passenger and freight traffic the following year.

Rear side of Peerless Portland Cement Factory

The picture was taken from the rear side of the Peerless Portland Cement Factory.  The 1915 map below shows the approximate location of where the pictures was taken.  The postcard was postmarked in Union City on Sep 6 1906.  Was from Esther to Mrs. Beulah Smith in Shindle, Mufflin Co., Pennsylvania.