It extended from Marblehead through Lakeside to a connection with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (later the New York Central Railroad) at Danbury (an unincorporated hamlet bordering Sandusky Bay).
These firms sent out thousands of carloads per year of shell or "flux" stone to be consumed by blast furnaces across the midwestern United States in the process of making steel.
When the original promoters were unable to build enough traffic to keep the line financially afloat, the railroad was purchased by the Cleveland, Ohio-based Kelley Island Lime & Transport Company (KIL&T) January 1, 1891, as its first step in buying out all of the quarries of Marblehead.
The CT&L was promoted locally by Edgar H. Brennan, a civil engineer, who was unable to find enough financial capital to begin construction.
Blood and a syndicate of other railroad promoters based in Massachusetts, who bought out the interests of the CT&L, incorporated the L&M, and began construction on or about October 1, 1886.
Although steam railroads and interurbans were usually very fierce rivals, the L&M welcomed the new line with open arms because it provided a new outlet for freight traffic aside from its connection with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.
The two made a connection at a point named Violet, near Church Road, in rural Danbury Township, until the TPC&L's track was abandoned in 1940.
In 1907, the L&M leased to the TPC&L a short section track extending from Marblehead to Ohlemacher's Dock, which faced north into Lake Erie.
This arrangement ultimately proved unfavorable, so in 1911, the L&M built and leased to the TPC&L a new track extension extending south from Marblehead to a dock facing south into Sandusky Bay at Bay Point, where ferry boats took passengers to Cedar Point and Sandusky over a shorter and much more direct route.
Its property and infrastructure were transferred to Standard Slag, which kept it largely intact, operating it occasionally over the years for customers who preferred to receive stone by rail rather than water.
The results of the preservation work was published on a series of websites including now defunct The Marblehead Quarry History Site in 2004.