There's a place just three miles west of Albion that seems to get very little attention. In the very small attention that it does get, some places say it's a ghost town. It really isn't one, although it had every chance of growing into a little town.

The area is called 'Clough View', located at the junction of Michigan Avenue and 24 Mile Road. I could only find one picture of it, but it's a good one. Taken around 1910, it shows two railroads side-by-side, a little train house/depot, the Kalamazoo River, a horse & buggy, an interurban track, and the junction when it was just two dirt roads.

In the early 1900s, this was a very scenic view, now blocked by all the trees and brush. Clough View got its name from landowner Henry Clough who bought 219 acres in the area in the 1880s He passed away in 1897, leaving the land to Mrs. Clough and his son, Phineas. In 1903, the Jackson Traction Company laid a second “railroad” track specifically for interurban travel between Jackson and Battle Creek. Clough View became a favorite stopping point, as travelers enjoyed the scenic landscape.

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Thanks to more and more people choosing to buy automobiles, interurban passenger service diminished drastically. It was discontinued in late 1928 and the track was ripped up in 1930.

Driving through this area, you would never know there was once a rail stop that failed to flourish into a village, as many depots and stations did. If you pay attention while driving on Michigan Avenue between Albion and Marshall, you can catch glimpses of the trail where the old interurban track used to be.

Former Depot, Clough View

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