This abandoned railway began as the Mad River & Lake Erie Railroad in 1835. It was the very first railroad west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the first in Ohio. At its completion, it ran from Sandusky to Springfield. The MR&LE was later purchased by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad (also known as the Big Four), itself becoming part of the New York Central System (NYC) in 1906.
In the mid-20th century, when most railroads were in decline, the NYC began to look for ways to reduce costs. They rerouted trains and slowly began to abandon the MR&LE track throughout the 1960s. Based on various system maps of the time period, this particular section from Sandusky to Tiffin via Clyde appears to have been removed sometime between 1966-1968, prior to the advent of the ill-fated Penn Central. The remainder of the line was abandoned in 1976, with the advent of Conrail.
Today, most of the ROW has been obliterated as farmers removed the railbed within their farms. Only a trace of the railbed is visible.