Shanghai Pit was a place for many years where Michigan Central Railroad crews sent crews to cut blocks of ice out of the Huron River that woud be bound for the ice house in Detroit. On Thursday afternoon, Feb. 21, 1907, Shanghai Pit became the site of the most deadly railroad accident in Ypsilanti history.
From the late 19th century until the winter of 1922, the Michigan Central railroad maintained an ice-cutting station just northeast of Ypsilanti, behind today’s St. Joseph Hospital near an old gravel pit called Shanghai Pit.
- Cadillac Sand and Gravel Co. vs Michigan Central RR, August 13, 1915.
- Along the tracks: a directory of named places on Michigan railroads; p. 235
- http://oldnews.aadl.org/aa_news_20070204-reliance_on_signal_system
