Michigan's Impact On The Automobile Industry

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Michigan’s Impact on the Automobile


Transportation in Michigan has helped itself, the United States, and the World grow immensely. It started as far back as the American Indians and early settlers that used to live in the area. They traveled the waterways by canoes. Traveling by waterways could only take you so far around Michigan. This led to the building of the first highway in the 1820’s. It extended from Detroit across the Maumee River into Ohio. The Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad was completed in 1836. Railroad cars were first pulled by horses. . In 1837, the Erie and Kalamazoo started to operate what was probably the first steam locomotive west of the Allegheny Mountains. By the mid-1800's, stagecoach routes connected Detroit with Chicago. The roads that were being build could not withstand the harsh environmental changes that Michigan had to offer, and so the state highway department was established in 1905. Soon after that, the first paved highway was built in 1908 in Detroit. This soon paved the way for th!
e first automobile.

The impact of the automobile between 1900 through 1945was immense. It paved the way for a future dependency on the automobile. To paint a better picture, imagine life without an automobile. Everyday life would be dull, cumbersome, and tedious. An individual's mobility would be very limited. Basically, the life without an automobile could not be fathomed. The importance of the automobile is often taken for granite. Society may not know what appreciate the impact of the automobile and effects it has created. The impact of the automobile had both positive and negative effects on America between 1900 through 1945. Automobile provided an outlet for individuals and spread the freedom of travel among all classes of people. It also helped to introduce rural dwellers to the aspects of urban life and vice versa. One of the negative effects was that automobiles helped to put of big decline in the use of ra...