The Pere Marquette Railway was a railroad that operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Canadian province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Buffalo; Toledo; and Chicago.
The company was named after Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
Loading salt into a Pere Marquette boxcar
C&O's The Pere Marquette at Grand Central Station in Chicago on December 26, 1967
Postcard depiction of the line's streamliners.
Postcard photo of one of the railroad's dining cars.
Jacques Marquette, S.J., sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Ignace. In 1673, Marquette, with Louis Jolliet, an explorer born near Quebec City, was the first European to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River Valley.
1869 portrait of Marquette
Pere Marquette and the Indians [at the Mississippi River], oil painting (1869) by Wilhelm Lamprecht (1838–1906), at Marquette University
Grave of Jacques Marquette in Saint Ignace, Michigan
Sketch of Marquette