From the hill above Plank Road in the 1870s (North Main Street today), you could look back toward where you are now standing and view sources of Ann Arbor's early power and transportation. In the panorama, find your location, along with the dam, the millpond, and the millrace. Beginning in 1830, they supplied power for Lower Town’s mills. Sinclair’s Mill stood to your right.
After 1839, when the railroad reached Ann Arbor from Detroit, paper, wool, flour, and feed from the mills, as well as livestock held in pens in the foreground,could be shipped to eastern markets. Coal arrived by rail for the Ann Arbor Gas Company, which built its first works in 1858 across from the old depot. Lumber arrived for Selleck Wood’s and other lumberyards and planing mills nearby.
Ann Arbor's second railroad, the Toledo and Ann Arbor, built a wooden trestle above the dam in 1881 to extend its line north across the river. A flimsy metal trestle replaced it by 1894. In that photo you can see the Michigan Central Railroad had a locomotive turn table near the bridge on the right. The building on the millpond, with the long dock, was a popular boat livery. In January 1904 the metal trestle collapsed and was replaced by a sturdier trestle with massive concrete piers.
In 1914 the Edison Company replaced Argo Dam and rebuilt the millrace as part of a plan to generate electric power from this and eight other dams along the Huron River.