Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 12, 1890 Nearly three decades after becoming the first streetcar company to operate in Washington, D.C., the Washington and Georgetown Railroad achieved a new milestone by switching from horse-drawn streetcars to cable cars. “CABLE CARS RUNNING,” proclaimed a headline in that day’s edition of the Washington Critic. This change took placed due to a... Continue Reading →
February 17, 2012 A major public transit milestone for Cincinnati began with the start of construction on a new streetcar system, known as the Connector, in that major Ohio city. Those on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony for this system included Mark Mallory, mayor of Cincinnati from 2005 to 2013; and Ray LaHood, U.S. secretary... Continue Reading →
May 10, 1876 The Centennial International Exhibition -- held in Philadelphia to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in that city -- was opened. Officially called the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, it was the first actual World’s Fair held in the United... Continue Reading →
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 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 →
January 28, 1962 The conclusion of the first era of streetcars in Washington, D.C. and the grand finale for a memorable part of the city’s transportation history, took place. “A century of streetcar service ends in Washington,” reported the Associated Press, “and nostalgia lies thick along the Potomac.” This first era of regularly scheduled streetcar... Continue Reading →
April 28, 1958 Perley Albert Thomas, a transportation entrepreneur who had a significant impact on the streetcar and bus industries in the United States, died in Jacksonville, Florida. Thomas was born in 1874 and grew up on a farm in Ontario, Canada. With a background in machinery and woodworking, he moved to Detroit in 1901... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 