Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
February 23, 1910 A new trolley system serving the city of Johnstown in Pennsylvania’s Cambria County was incorporated. The Johnstown Traction Company (JTC) took over the street railway operations of the Johnstown Passenger Railway Passenger Railway Company, which had been launched in 1883 to provide horse car services. (In the wake of the historic flood six... Continue Reading →
February 22, 1861 Edward Payson Weston began a 478-mile (769.3-kilometer) trip from the Massachusetts State House in Boston to Washington, D.C., to attend Abraham Lincoln’s first presidential inauguration – and he did so using only his two feet for transportation. The 21-year-old Weston undertook this ambitious trip in the first place because of a bet he... Continue Reading →
February 19, 1973 Boa Vista International Airport in Brazil was opened. This airport serves Boa Vista, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima. Boa Vista is also the only state capital in Brazil that is located entirely north of the equator. The airport has the distinction of being the northernmost Brazilian airport that handles scheduled... Continue Reading →
February 18, 1907 The U.S. Congress approved a measure allowing the Maryland-based Washington, Spa Spring and Gretta Electric Railroad (WSSGRR) to extend its streetcar operations into Washington, D.C. This act cleared the way for the last new streetcar company of the era to provide transit services in Washington, D.C., and the plan was to build the... Continue Reading →
February 16, 1843 Henry Martyn Leland, who would leave an indelible mark on the American automobile industry, was born in northeastern Vermont. As a young man, he worked as for the renowned tools manufacturer Brown & Sharp in Providence, Rhode Island. That job and others helped Leland refine a wide range of mass-production and mechanical... Continue Reading →
February 15, 2017 An expressway was dedicated on the Kapiti Coast on New Zealand’s North Island. The grand opening of this four-lane route took place “[w]ith the smell of new road seal lingering in the air,” reported the New Zealand Herald. The Kapiti Expressway covers 11 miles (18 kilometers) from Mackays Crossing, which is located... Continue Reading →
February 12, 2012 Tokyo Gate Bridge in Japan’s capital city was first opened to general traffic at around 10:00 a.m. Construction on this 8,589-foot (2,618 meters)-long truss cantilever truss bridge in Tokyo’s municipality (special ward) of Kōtō had started a decade earlier. The bridge carries motor vehicles as well as pedestrians across Tokyo Bay at... Continue Reading →
February 11, 1878 The Boston Bicycle Club was formally established. This club was the first official bicycle organization in the United States, and it took shape a year after the nation’s first periodical focused on that transportation mode – The American Bicycling Journal – had been likewise launched in the capital of Massachusetts. The Boston Bicycle... Continue Reading →
February 9, 1875 The Hoosac Tunnel, which passes through a part of both the Berkshires and the Green Mountains known as the Hoosac Range, was opened in western Massachusetts. (“Hoosac” is an Algonquian phrase for “place of stones.”) Construction on that 4.75-mile (7.7-kilometer)-long tunnel had begun during the early 1850s, and the first train to... Continue Reading →
February 8, 1912 The first plane flight in Greece took place when Emmanouil Argyropoulos piloted an aircraft over his native country. Argyropoulos, who had been born in 1889, was originally a civil engineer. He set aside that career, however, after developing a strong interest in human flight. Argyropoulos pursued this newfound interest by going to Paris,... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 