Adrian: where Michigan's first railroad ran

Adrian got its start as a railroad town. In 1836 — the year before Michigan even became a state — the Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad reached Adrian from Toledo, the first railroad built anywhere in Michigan. It barely resembled a modern train: a horse pulled a carriage along oak rails topped with strap iron, and a round trip to Toledo took all day. (You’ll often hear it called the first railroad west of the Alleghenies; that’s the traditional boast, though a couple of lines down South were actually a bit earlier.) A steam locomotive, the “Adrian No. 1,” arrived the next year, and Adrian grew into a busy rail and factory town.

Downtown, another piece of old Adrian still draws crowds: the Croswell Opera House, which dates to the 1860s and bills itself as Michigan’s oldest operating theater. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and still puts on shows.