Early in the state’s history, the Michigan Road linked the Ohio River to Lake Michigan. Using federal funds earmarked for transportation improvements, Indiana in the 1820s embarked on a program of state road construction to connect principal towns and settlements to one another and to the new state capital in Indianapolis.
By far the most ambitious project was the Michigan Road. Running the length of the state from Madison to Michigan City, which was platted as the road’s northern terminus in 1832, it traversed southeastern Indiana via Versailles, Greensburg, and Shelbyville to Indianapolis. The northern leg skirted the worst of northwestern Indiana’s marshlands by way of Logansport and South Bend. Scarcely more than a muddy lane by today’s standards, the Michigan Road was essentially completed by the late 1830s. In 1837, because of the state’s inability to appropriate funds for further maintenance, the legislature shifted responsibility for upkeep to the counties through which the road passed.
A few roadside dwellings from the Michigan Road’s heyday still stand in , especially in Washington and Franklin townships. A former tollhouse of the Augusta Gravel Road Company, just north of , marks the years after the Civil War when private companies undertook to improve the road surface and recoup their investment through user fees. With the popularization of the automobile, the road, called Southeastern Avenue south of Washington Street, took on new life in the 1920s as State Road 29, later U.S. Highway 421, which lasted in Indianapolis until the federal highway was routed onto the completed I-465 in the 1970s. A marker sits at the intersection of Washington and Southeastern streets to highlight the road’s history.
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