Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad: Stories from the Victorian Era - Paperback

by Michael Delaware (Author)

From the author of Murder in Victorian Western Michigan and Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime comes more thrilling stories from the Wolverine State's past.

As the Michigan Central Railroad company became a juggernaut, the nineteenth-century rail line also devolved into a bastion for crime as morality was often set aside for profit. In 1850, a grand jury indicted fifty men in Jackson County for conspiracy to commit arson after a freight depot in Detroit was set ablaze. When two Grand Trunk locomotives collided in Battle Creek in 1893 killing twenty-seven people, a conductor and an engineer each accused the other, avoiding conviction. A Mineral Ridge train robbery of $70,000 in payroll money destined for miners on the Keweenaw Peninsula was exposed by a former railroad worker involved in the heist, allowing him to escape prosecution and sending four others to prison.

Author Michael Delaware unfolds dark stories of corruption and crime from Michigan's Victorian age.

Author Biography

Michael Delaware is an Arizona native who left home at age eighteen. He lived for fifteen years in Georgia, where he managed and owned a small business. Moving to Michigan in 1999, he resides today in Battle Creek. Following a passion for storytelling, he began producing videos for YouTube on local history in 2010. Today he is the host of a regional podcast, Tales of Southwest Michigan's Past. His books include Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad, Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime and Murder in Victorian Western Michigan, which won the History category at the 2026 Great Midwest Book Festival. He is a sought-after public speaker and can be contacted through MichaelDelaware.com.