The desire for a railway began very early in Detroit, considering it was a frontier town on the western extremes. The first railroad chartered in the United States was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It started in Baltimore in 1827, then the third largest city in the United States. Detroit had fewer than 2,000 people at that time and yet the dream of a railroad in Michigan was strong in the early decades of the 19th century. On December 17, 1829, the Detroit Gazette wrote prophetically:
"Ten years hence, or before, the citizens of Detroit will be able to reach the Atlantic in twenty-four hours. In twenty years … the navigation of our broad and beautiful lakes will be of no manner of use to us, because land transportation will be so much cheaper. It will be a comfortable thing to get into not a coach or a steamboat - but a snug house built over a steam engine, and, after journeying smoothly and safely at the rate of thirty or forty miles per hour, find yourself at breakfast next morning in New York or Washington."
