Ionia and Lansing Railroad Ionia and Lansing Railroad The Ionia and Lansing Rail Road is a defunct railroad which operated in the state of Michigan in the 1860s and 1870s. The company incorporated on November 13, 1865; the investors hailed primarily from Lansing, Ionia and Portland. The original charter called for a from Ionia to Lansing; on January 13, 1869 this was amended with a much grander vision: a line from Lansing to the mouth of the Pentwater River at Pentwater, on the shores of Lake Michigan. In late 1869 the I&L opened a line between Lansing and Ionia; the first trains ran in
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