C.C.C. & St.L. Ry. Layout of Company Property & Shops Beech Grove, Ind.

An early plan of the newly incorporated company town of Beech Grove, Indiana.

This huge hand-drawn survey, dated 1907, outlines the streets and major property owners across recently organized Beech Grove, Indiana. The year prior, the New York Central purchased the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway (a major Midwestern operator) and elected to acquire a parcel of land in order to create one of the largest automotive maintenance facilities in the world. The resulting campus in Beech Grove, completed in 1908, would ultimately encompass over 600 acres and numerous specialized buildings.

Many of those structures are outlined and labeled near the center of the sheet, though they remain unconnected to the primary line that bisects the image horizontally. Most of the adjacent property to the west was owned by the Beech Grove Improvement Company, with hopes for a prosperous town to follow in the wake of the ongoing construction.

Topographic contours are shown faintly in brown ink, while local waterways are highlighted in purple. Downtown streets are named after the primary cities served by the C.C.C. & St.L. R.R. – Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit.  A second sheet, also manuscript on linen (smaller), showcases the ~42-acre property of M.J. Jennings, situated in approximately the center of the larger plan.

Sources: Indy Encyclopedia; Intra Transport History;