THE AGE OF THE TROLLEY

With amazing rapidity after its introduction in the 1880’s and go’s, the electric streetcar came to dominate the urban landscape. Soon it reached out into the suburbs, hastening the growth of American cities, and even began to compete with the steam railroads for the intercity trade. It is a rare post-card street scene of the first two or three decades of this century that does not show, somewhere, the cars or their telltale tracks, some 26,000 miles of them at the peak, about 1917. With no little regret in this age of fumes and pollution, one must record that they were clean, cheap, and also roomy. Can one say the same these days for what has so completely replaced them?

EVERYTHING BEGAN IN THE CENTRAL CITY

A CLATTER ON MAIN STREET EVERYWHERE

FRESH AIR AND COUNTRY SCENES

DON’T LOOK DOWN, MABEL