The switch you ask about, I believe, is a westbound facing-point switch located about 0.15 miles west of Clay Street. The track extended to the northwest, along the west side of the Sauk River, to a point west of Jay Street and south of the end of Mill Street. There was an east-west section that was from the west end of Pearl Street at Jay Street west about two city blocks. I don’t find, in a quick search, what kind of mill was served, but the library may have such information. Who built this spur I cannot say, but it appears that only the LS&MS-NYC operated on it. But the spur does fit in with what I understand the Mansfield road’s intentions.
The Mansfield approached Coldwater from the southeast and planned to build northwest from Coldwater. The Branch County map in the 1873 Walling Atlas of the State of Michigan has the line coming into town and joining the LS&MS line east of Jefferson Street and leaving it west of Clay Street. My guess is that, since the Mansfield was Pennsylvania Railroad-financed, its line would parallel the LS&MS between those points and that the LS&MS would not allow a project supported by the hated Pennsylvania to use its tracks. The Mansfield line went north out of Coldwater and roughly paralleled Union City Road. My guess is that the Mansfield’s engineers picked this route because the land directly north and northeast of the city is relatively hilly, based on topographic maps that I find, and there is a relatively level route along Union City Road. Again, my guess.
G. M. Meints
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