Michigan Transit Museum

Story

The Grand Trunk Western Railroad, Mount Clemens Station is a railroad depot located at 198 Grand Street in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Young Thomas Edison learned telegraphy at this station. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1973. It is now operated as the Michigan Transit Museum.HistoryMount Clemens was first settled in 1781, and in 1818 became the county seat of Macomb County. In the fall of 1859, Grand Trunk Western Railroad opened their Port Huron to Detroit line, travelling through Mount Clemens. They opened passenger stations along the line, including one in Port Huron and this one in Mount Clemens. The Mount Clemens station was identical to other stations built in New Haven, Fraser, and Richmond around the same time; the four are very similar to stations constructed earlier by Grand Trunk in Ontario which were likely based on an 1841 English design.Soon after opening, the railroad hired twelve-year-old Thomas Edison, whose family had moved to Port Huron five years earlier, as a newsboy and candy salesman on the Port Huron - Detroit run. In August 1862, while the train was laying over at the Mount Clemens station, Edison pulled a three-year-old boy from the path of an oncoming train. As a reward, the boy's father, station agent J. U. Mackenzie, taught the young Edison train telegraphy and operation, spurring his interest in technology. In later years, Mackenzie joined Edison at his Menlo Park laboratory as a research associate.