The elevation fight: two Supreme Court cases and a viaduct

1884–1929 · THE LAW OF THE CROSSINGS

Before the city could lift its railroads, it had to litigate them — and it won one case and lost the other: The first case came off the Vandalia's franchise. The city sued to compel the Terre Haute & Logansport to open its Calvert Street crossing, conform the roadbed to the street grade, and plank the crossing safe, under the franchise of 10 November 1884; an unperformed contract of 17 January 1902 for a steel viaduct at Elmira (Calvert) Street was in the case as well. The United States Supreme Court's answer, in Vandalia Railroad Co. v. State ex rel. City of South Bend, 207 U.S. 359, decided 16 December 1907, was to dismiss the railroad's writ of error — the Indiana judgment rested on an independent ground of state law that the federal court would not disturb, and the city's position stood, as this build's Spine puts it, and the railroad lost.

The Grand Trunk's case came out the other way. The road claimed its 1868 ordinance — the Division Street grant, one track with double track permitted from the river bridge to Taylor Street — was a contract the city had broken by repealing the double-track right on 14 October 1901. In Grand Trunk Western Railway Co. v. City of South Bend, 227 U.S. 544, decided 24 February 1913, the Court agreed: Justice Lamar's opinion held the ordinance a contract in its entirety, the repeal "not regulative of the use, but destructive of the franchise," and reversed (Justice Day concurred in the result; Justices Hughes and Pitney dissented). The elevation, when it came, came by agreement rather than judgment: the joint New York Central–Grand Trunk viaduct through downtown that the Interstate Commerce Commission's 1932 report documents as joint track operation on a viaduct from High Street westward to Arnold Street, 1.57 miles, the Central's tracks paralleling the Grand Trunk's on the south — the works the Story of South Bend section records the city completing on 29 September 1929, with the Grand Trunk's tracks out of Division Street, the level crossings from Chapin to Miami streets gone, the freight layout modernized, and Union Station built over the whole arrangement.

Sources:

1. Vandalia Railroad Co. v. State ex rel. City of South Bend, 207 U.S. 359 (16 December 1907) — the Calvert Street crossing suit, the 10 November 1884 franchise, the unperformed viaduct contract of 17 January 1902, and the dismissal of the writ of error.
2. Grand Trunk Western Railway Co. v. City of South Bend, 227 U.S. 544 (24 February 1913) — the 1868 ordinance held a contract in its entirety, the repeal of 14 October 1901 held destructive of the franchise, judgment reversed; Lamar, J.; Day, J., concurring in the result; Hughes and Pitney, JJ., dissenting.
3. Interstate Commerce Commission report of 1932 — the joint track operation on the downtown viaduct, High Street to Arnold Street, 1.57 miles, the New York Central's tracks paralleling the Grand Trunk's on the south.
4. This build's Spine section — the elevation program's completion on 29 September 1929, the removal of the Grand Trunk tracks from Division Street and of the level crossings from Chapin to Miami streets, settled there and built on here.