Shown above is a photo of the Birmingham depot taken around 1900. That was the era of gas lights in the Village. Just before sunset the lamplighter would ride his bicycle through town and light the lamps. Then, late in the evening, he'd return to extinguish them. One of the gas lights appears prominently in the foreground.
The structure where the illuminating gas was manufactured is now used as a private dwelling on Willits Street, a bit west of Chester.
The first Birmingham depot was located on the east side of the railway tracks. This was a rather unsafe spot, since most residents lived west of the railroad and thus had to cross the tracks in order to board passenger trains. Furthermore, after a half century of use, the station had become rather rundown and dilapdated.
Because of many complaints by residents and petitions to the railway, the new structure shown above was constructed in the summer of 1887. It was located on the west side of the tracks where the rail line crossed Troy St., now known as East Maple.
Members of the Ladies Library Association and the Village Improvement Society, under the direction of Martha Baldwin, landscaped the ground south of the building. They moved shrubs from the site of the first station, planted flowers, kept the area weeded and even saw to it that a small decorative fountain was installed. For many years the two organizations maintained the landscaping. They did such a fine job of beautification that a number of travelers commented that Birmingham had the best depot on the line.
You can see a small windowed structure behind and above the passenger cars. It was a cupola or belvedere perched atop the large freight shed. My grandfather, Edward Smith, Sr., operated the only lumber and coal yard in Birmingham at the time. His business was directly east of the freight shed, a goodly portion of which he rented from the Railway in which to store grain that he bought from local farmers and then sold on the open market, often to flour mills in Detroit.
At one time trains ran through the old freight shed. In later years you could still see where smoke from the locomotives had blackened the building's rafters.
In 1931 the Grand Trunk Western Railway moved about a mile east of this location. A Sunoco gas station was long situated on the site of the old depot, North of East Maple, between Ring Road and Woodward Avenue. As of this writing the Sunoco Station has been torn down and the area once occupied by the old depot is vacant.
For a number of years the abandoned Grand Trunk right of way in the heart of Birmingham lay dormant. Then, in 1939, an eight lane superhighway was constructed where the trains once puffed through town. For over a half century this impressive thoroughfare was known as Hunter Blvd. A few years ago, however, it was renamed Woodward Avenue.
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