Michigan Road

In actuality they were sometimes little more than crude paths following old animal and Native American trails and filled with sinkholes, stumps, and deep, entrapping ruts.

Hoosier leaders, however, recognized the importance of roads to the growth and economic health of the state, and the needed improvements.

Half of the pioneers to settle northwestern Indiana did so by using the Michigan Road to travel from the Ohio River to their destination.

The Kankakee River's swamp posed a problem for the construction of the road, forcing the commission to avoid a more direct northwesterly route and instead have it go from Logansport, straight up to the south bend of the St Joseph River (now the city of South Bend), and then west to Lake Michigan.

In 1836, the Indiana General Assembly passed the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act, which provided funds to pave the entire length of the road.

However, the economic difficulties brought on by overspending and the Panic of 1837 caused the state to enter partial bankruptcy before the entire length could be paved.

The situation forced Indiana to give control of the road to the individual counties as part of a plan to avoid losing it to the state's creditors.

[2] State Road 29, originally much longer, followed the route from Madison to Bryantsburg, and from Napoleon in the south to Logansport in the north.