The Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company was formed by the consolidation of two rival and nearly parallel lines. One of the companies thus united, was incorporated as the Junction Railroad Company, and the other by the name of the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company. The former was incorporated by an act of the legislature of Ohio, passed on the second day of March, 1846; and the latter, by an act of the seventh of March, 1850. The Junction Railroad Company, by its original charter and two amendments, in 1861, was authorized to construct a railroad from the city of Cleveland to the west line of the State by such route as the directors might determine, with power to construct branches to any points within the counties through which the main line might pass. The charter of the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company, authorized the construction of a railroad from Toledo, by the way of Norwalk, in the county of Huron, to a connection with the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad, at some point in the counties of Huron or Lorain. The authorized capital stock of the Junction Company was three millions, and that of the other company, two millions of dollars. The consolidation was effected, and the new company organized on the first of September, A. D. 1853, under the specific provisions of the twelfth section of the amendment to the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad charter, passed on the first of March, 1850. Under its charter, the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company constructed a road from the east bank of the Maumee river, opposite the city of Toledo, to Grafton, where it connects with the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, twenty-five miles south-west from the city of Cleveland, being a distance of eighty-seven and one-half miles, all of which was finished and put into operation in January, 1853. This became known as the Southern Division of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad.