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Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2025
Entity authorityQ29094276 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad (DM&T) was a shortline railroad which operated in the U.S. states of Michigan and Ohio. Opened in 1856, its main line ran from Detroit, Michigan, to Toledo, Ohio. The railroad leased itself to the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad (MS&NI) in 1856. A 1914 merger which created the New York Central Railroad led to the DM&T's consolidation into the new road, ending its existence.

Founding and charter

On March 3, 1851, the state of Ohio granted a charter to the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad (MS&NI), allowing it to build a rail line, in part, from Toledo, Ohio, to the Ohio-Michigan border.

The Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad was incorporated in the state of Michigan on April 26, 1855, with headquarters in Detroit. The charter allowed for a line originating in Detroit, Michigan, passing roughly along the shoreline of Lake Erie to the small town of Monroe on the Ohio-Michigan border. The DM&T obtained from the MS&NI the right to continue the line from the Michigan border to Toledo.

By the end of June 1856, the DM&T had constructed 54 miles (87 km) of track from Detroit south to the Michigan state line. On July 1, 1856, the DM&T leased itself in perpetuity to the MS&NI. The terms of the lease required the MS&NI to finish the line from the Michigan border into Toledo, and to assume payment on all outstanding bonds and other debt of the DM&T. Over the next five months, the MS&NI completed the final 11 miles (18 km) of track, with the last rail laid on December 25, 1856.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Detroit, Monroe and Toledo, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1856, 1914, 1851, 1855—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Detroit, Monroe and Toledo is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q29094276. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1856, 1914, 1851 and 1855.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.