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1851–1855 · the La Porte–Plymouth road; the Michigan Road negative
Before 1855, Walkerton's ground moved at a horse's pace on one road: the mail came by hack on the road from La Porte to Plymouth, and the West York post office — established 1851, half a mile south of the future townsite — was that road's institution here (the Story of Walkerton section leg carries the office and C. W. N. Stephens whole). The state road of the region's founding generation, the Michigan Road, does not run here: the Story of Walkerton section leg's geometry puts that road's course east of this ground, and the printed negative stands — this town's founding road was the La Porte–Plymouth county road, not the great state road, and Walkerton's streets, when they came, were laid out not on any road's line but by the railroad's surveyors, on the grid the town still keeps. The other two famous names are negatives of the same kind, printed in the Story of Walkerton section and carried here without resurrection: US 33 never touched Walkerton, and the Lincoln Highway never ran through it.
Sources:
- The Story of Walkerton section leg of this build (Chapman's hack-road mail; the West York office, 1851; the Michigan Road, US 33 and Lincoln Highway negatives, with their geometry).
- Chapman, History of St. Joseph County (1880), the Lincoln Township record, as read for the Story of Walkerton section leg.