Amboy, Lansing and Traverse Bay Railroad given to railroads (which would then re-sell these lands for a profit) in exchange for constructing certain routes. At the heart of Michigan's network at the time were the Michigan Central Railroad and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, both of which ran east-west across the southern Lower Peninsula. As proposed in the route would run from "Amboy by Hillsdale and Lansing, and from Grand Rapids to some point on or near Traverse Bay." This route would bisect the existing railroad network and provide a railroad connection to Lansing, the new state capital. Almost immediately local interests intervened: the
Lansing, Kansas a hospital steward in the 7th Kansas Cavalry. Following the Civil War, he earned a position at the new state penitentiary in Kansas as a hospital steward. He later resigned and opened a general mercantile store, which held the post office and an apothecary business, in the area called “Town of Progress”. “Doc Lansing”, as he became known, and his friend John C. Schmidt became co-owners of of land that was platted into town lots in 1878; they named the area “Town of Lansing”. Lansing did not become an incorporated city until 1959. The Kansas State Penitentiary, later renamed the