Evans was a post office and railroad station in Courtland Township, Kent County. The 1897 Michigan State Gazetteer, the town had a population of 100, a feed and produce store, a general store and blacksmith, a lumber outlet, grocery store, barber shop, livestock breeder, a meat market, a Free Methodist church, and a music teacher. Ten years later, little had changed, but the town added a physician, a carpet weaver and a handle manufacturer. Improved farm land was available for $50 per acre. Evans was 50 ½ miles from Ashley. It had a small station similar to Pompei (see the TS&M link below for photos of the various types of stations on the line). The plat below shows Evans and Sheffield. Today, all that remains of Evans are a collection of private homes and the signs announcing the location on the roadway. Rural Farm Delivery did away with the need for post offices and improved roads, more cars and trucks reduced the need for the railroad.
In 1887-89, a railroad line originally known as the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon, was constructed between Ashley and Muskegon. Rails reached Carson City in September of 1887, Greenville in November of 1887, Cedar Springs and Muskegon by the end of the year. Construction continued in 1888 for ballasting, sidings and depots. On August 1st, 1888, a lease of the TS&M to the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada was completed. GTC later purchased the line outright. A mail and express train and a mixed train (with passenger service) was operated daily between Owosso (over the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Northern Michigan to Ashley) and Muskegon. The line was locally known as the GT version of the Turkey Trail because it meandered like a turkey and also because it allegedly never made money.
In 1928, GTC was merged with other Michigan Grand Trunk subsidiaries into the Grand Trunk Western, itself a subsidiary of the Canadian National. In 1930, GTW secured trackage rights between Grand Rapids and Muskegon over the Pennsylvania Railroad (former Grand Rapids and Indiana) Muskegon Branch. Service on the Turkey Trail was reduced to way freights and mixed trains. In 1946, with heavy service operating over the PRR, the portion of the line between Greenville and Muskegon was abandoned.
The railroad grade passed through Evans east-west just south of the abandon block building on the west side of the road, about one hundred fifty yards north of the cache.
Sources:
TS&M history.
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