Photograph of Thomson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge — Photograph by Jim Roberts, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Thompson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

From the record

“The Thomson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge, also known as just the Thomson Road Bridge, is a bridge located on Thomson Road over the abandoned Michigan Air Line Railroad right-of-way in Howard Township, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.”
Wikipedia article Thomson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 9 National Register listings published here for Cass County · listed in 1999 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Thompson Road--Air Line Railroad Bridge - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. Thompson Rd. over abandoned RR right-of-way, Howard, 49120
When was it listed? December 1999
Category. structure
Also known as. Highway Bridges of Michigan MPS
Township. Howard township
National Register reference number. 99001612 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

12 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Thompson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge between 2018 and 2020, burning about 12 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Natural	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
31 August 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOWARD TOWNSHIP VFD 2019278 - 2019
27 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOWARD TOWNSHIP VFD 2019238 - 2019
22 May 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOWARD TOWNSHIP VFD 2018131 - 2018
9 April 2019	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	NILES TOWNSHIP FD 2019111 - 2019
26 April 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	EAU CLAIRE FD 49 - 2018
25 April 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOWARD TOWNSHIP VFD 2018102 - 2018
10 April 2020	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	EAU CLAIRE FD 23 - 2020
25 March 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOWARD TOWNSHIP VFD 2019092 - 2019

Every fire recorded in Cass County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Thompson Road-Air Line Railroad Bridge: 4 producers, 1 past producer. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Poehlman Marl Pit	Limestone, General	Producer
Cass Co Pit Yerington Const	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Kiell Pit & Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Niles Dredge and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Three S Pit & Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Cass County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

3 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
First Methodist Episcopal Church of Pokagon	1.7 miles	2002
Criffield-Whiteley House	7.4 miles	2016
Michigan Central Railroad Dowagiac Depot	7.5 miles	1993

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 99001612 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Cass County	All 9 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.