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Did you know that a cable car line was built, that never ran? In San Francisco? And that a piece of it still exists? 'Tis true and Hilton doesn't mention it! It was franchised to the City Railroad, a horsecar line that never ran cable cars, in December, 1890. The line was built the following year, 1891. And then nothing happened. Cars were built, but remained at the factory. The City Railroad was, by this time, controlled by the Market Street Cable Railway. The line ran from 14th and Mission via Mission, West Mission (Otis), Potter (12th Street), Page, Masonic, and Frederick Streets to 1st Avenue (Arguello Boulevard). The line lay unused until it was electrified on August 23, 1894, becoming the new Market Street Railway's first trolley operation.
The line eventually became part of the 6 Masonic trolley line, and was eventually converted to trolley coach in 1949.
The cars, built by O'Brian & Sons in 1890, went to the Metropolitan Railway, (electric) and were rebuilt for that use. One of these cars was rebuilt twice: 1900 and 1913. This is the surviving "piece". It is now Muni car 0109, and it was a rail grinder from 1913 until the 1980's, and is now on loan to the Western Railway Museum, at Rio Vista Junction. The car built as a cable car that never ran as a cable car is so modified as to be unrecognizable, except for its floor dimensions: 23' x 8"6".
The foregoing copyright 2000 by Emiliano J. Echeverria, All Rights reserved. Used by special arrangement for the Cable Car Home Page.
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Lauren Weinstein
"Professor Neon's TV & Movie Mania"
http://www.professorneon.com
Outer Limits
"The Duplicate Man"
Paul Ward:
"There are several private funiculars in the Silver Lake neighborhood, and
until three or four years ago, there was a wonderful funicular at Forest
Lawn Cemetery. It was built by the boss in the twenties, because whenever
he drove through the gates in the morning, the guard alerted the staff to
stop their partying and debauchery and get to work. The manager's house
was at the end of a cul-de-sac in Glendale below the cemetery, and when
he had the funicular built, he could ascend the grade and coast down the
road to his office in his Locomobile, without the staff knowing of his
approach. He was then able to catch them in their laziness.
"The funicular is still there, but the car is gone, and the cable house has been sealed up in concrete. As I said, there are three or four private funiculars left in Silver Lake. John Heller, VP of the ERHA may have a hint as to their location, and I have :cc'd him on this e-mail."
Ray Long:
"And while you're at it, don't forget the three private funiculars on
Catalina Island. Also, there was one used for construction of the geodesic
dome house in Hollywoodland and one above Hollyridge Drive same canyon.
Laurel Canyon had a couple at one time or another. All of them I believe
are now among the missing. The dome house was demolished after Buckminister
Fuller died."
LAPRY@aol.com
"The round hillside house is (still) perched on the San Fernando Valley side
of the Hollywood hills above roughly the area defined by Studio City and
Sherman Oaks. I'm not sure if the funicular railway is still operating, but
I think that it would be extremely difficult to access the building without
it. It was built, I recall, in the 1960s, and allows a breathtaking view of the
Valley."
David McCanne
Lauren Weinstein:
"Yes, that's definitely the one -- the photo at:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/shulman/image_collection/Malin.html
confirmed it instantly. If it was built in the 60's it must have been
almost literally brand new when OL used it for their shoot early in
that decade.
Thanks very much Joe and John. And also please thank David McCanne
for me. Next time I'm out that way, I'm going to take a look!
Thanks again."
Ray Long:
"I have been led to believe that there are (present tense) three private
funiculars on Santa Catalina Island. They are supposedly little more than
inclined elevators for access to private homes."
"Regarding the two in Hollywoodland. On the west side of the canyon, there
was an incline used to haul construction materials up to the non-extinct
geodesic dome house on the west side of the canyon. One of the houses on
the east ridge had an incline of sorts from Hollyridge Drive to the top of
the hill. I haven't been up there in 30 years so I don't know the status
today.
"There were a couple more in Laurel Canyon. These private inclines were
stretching the definition of the words "incline" and "permanent" but they
were private and were used as incline elevators or dumb waiters."
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The article calls the ferry "Marin City", but her owners called her "Marin". The steamer Requa burned and Marin was rebuilt on her hull with an internal combustion engine.
The Northwestern Pacific's new ferryboat, Marin City, built to take the place of the "Requa" which was destroyed by fire several months ago, will make a trial trip from Sausalito this afternoon and if everything works smoothly will be placed on the Sausalito, Tiburon, Belvedere run at once. It is a sister ship of the Requa, as far as construction is concerned, and will take the place of the James M Donohue, the vessel put on after the loss of the Requa, and against which Tiburon and Belvedere residents recently complained to the state Railroad Commission. Contrary to reports, the Northwestern Pacific is not going to renew direct ferry service between San Francisco and Belvedere and Tiburon. It will retain the present routing between those points and Sausalito unless compelled to change by the Commission. Tiburon and Belvedere residents expressed their grievances against the railroad company, it was alleged, were accentuated when they were forced frequently to stand for many minutes at the train at the Sausalito transfer point.
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The article calls the ferry "Marin City", but her owners called her "Marin". The steamer Requa burned and Marin was rebuilt on her hull with an internal combustion engine. I think California City was part of Point Richmond, but I could be wrong.
The Northwestern Pacific's ferry steamer Requa, partially destroyed by fire several months ago and now rebuilt, improved and named the Marin City, was given a trial trip at Sausalito yesterday by officials of the company. The vessel left Sausalito, made the run from Tiburon to Angel Island, thence through the Raccoon Straits to California City and back to Sausalito in unusually quick time. So successful was this trip that the Marin City will be placed in the Sausalito-Tiburon-Belvedere run tomorrow.
The Marin City, ninety-eight by fifteen feet in dimensions, has been equipped with all modern conveniences according to officials of the company, and its speed demonstrated satisfactorily yesterday. It will hold 200 people comfortably and has a 150 horsepower engine. It is a touch more comfortable than the James M Donohue, the present steamer on the Sausalito run, against which the Tiburon and Belvedere residents have been complaining for some time.
Among other guests on the trial trip yesterday General Manager W. F. Palmer and Superintendent W. J. Hunter of the Northwestern Pacific had, as a guest, Captain Fisher of the steamer Korea.
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Clara Lane, the rather pretty girl who sang at the Park Theater in "The Pearl of Pekin," and afterward in "Mynheer Jan," was run over and hurt by a San Francisco cable car recently.
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The new cable railroad to Manhattanville will be opened to the public on Monday next. A crowd of politicians and a brass band will make the trial trip interesting this afternoon.
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After eighteen months of elaborate preparation the Third avenue Railroad Company, of New York, announced that its cable road would be in operation to-day from One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street and Third avenue to One Hundred and Eighty-seventh street and Tenth avenue in that city. A trial trip which was a failure was made on Saturday last, yet the management announced that everything would be made right and that the public could enjoy a cable road ride this morning.
A reporter for the EAGLE was sent to view the workings of the new road this morning. At One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street and Eighth avenue he found that the track was in readiness for the cable, but that no preparations had been made for laying it. At the depot of the cable company, Tenth avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-eighth street, everything was in confustion, horses were hitched to come of the cable cars and were drawing them around the switches, while men were at work on others taking off and adjusting grips. Mr. J. H. Robinson, the superintendent, was everywhere trying his best to learn exactly why it was that the system did not work. Colonel Paine, of the bridge, was there expressing the hope that in a few days everything would be made straignt and the road would be in successful operation. Mr D. J. Miller, the chief engineer of the road, was at home sick and ??? One of the many stockholders of the Third avenue line, who made the trip which took over three hours on Saturday, was present.
At half past nine o'clock two cars were pulled out of the station and got in readiness to open the road to the public. About fifty men and small boys crowded into the cars and by yells and cat calls indicated their willingness to make the trip. The man in charge of the grip pulled the levers of his machine, but the cars refused to start. After a time, however, they started with the assistance of some of the passengers. Just above the depot and beginning at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth street is a hill about nine blocks long, the incline of which is very steep. After half a dozen ??? The cars mounted this hill and proceeded on their journey to One Hundred and Eighty-seventh street and return. The whole distance traversed is less than seven miles and nearly two hours were consumed in the journey. Upon the return of the cars it was found that the grip was defective. The weight of the passengers pressed down the springs. Men were put to work to remedy the defect and it is said that the road will be successfully operated in a day or so.
The grip in use on this line is similar to that used in Chicago and San Francisco. The cable runs along the center of the track in a tunnel eighteen inches wide and twenty six inches deep, and is caught by the grip on the side. The cable is now raised, as on the bridge, when in use. It is operated by a two Wright engines of 350 horse power each.
The arrangements of the road are nearly perfect. In the main depot are duplicate cable machines, so that when the cable gets out of order the second one can be used immediately. It is the intention to run the line from river to river and to have connections with al the routes from the city proper. Colonel Paine, who is greatly interested in the working of the cable system, said:
"These failures are only caused by the lack of proper preparations. When the grips are satisfactorily adjusted the road will be a decided succcess, and will demonstrte the practicability of the cable as a means of transit. I believe that before the end of the week the road will be running very satisfactorily."
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President Lyon, of the Third avenue Railroad, New York, in his annual report to the directorys yesterday intimated that the cable system would soon supersede the use of horses on all the routes of the company.
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The California street line will operate on Thursday of next week. Superintendent Harris has been busy since the fire in straightening things out, and a trial of the machinery made yesterday revealed the fact that everything is in good order. One shaft was sprung by the heat of the fire, but that will be repaired in a few days and the line will be ready for operation. The cable slot and tracks along California street are in good order, and as soon as the crossing at Polk and California streets is fixed cars will be ready to run. The switch at that place was being installed by the United Railroads, but the strike of the trackmen retarded the work, and it will be finished by the California street Cable Railway Company.
Twenty new cars ordered by the company are beginning to arrive and these are in the barn at Hyde and California streets and will be ready to run in a few days. The first trial car will be sent over the route on Monday next and a few days will be required to attend to the details and get everything in order before service is restored permanently.
The cars will start at the ferry and run out California street to Presidio avenue where transfers will be made to the United Railroads for the Cliff House.
The machinery at the power-house at Hyde and California streets, although somewhat damaged by the fire is now in better order than ever. The triple engines have been turned over and all the weak points have been found and repaired. The slots in which the cables move have been smoothed out, and it is thought that the cars will run smoother than ever.
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A trial trip over the California-street line yesterday demonstrated that the cable slot was in the best of condition, and had been injured by the fire to a slight extent only. One of the new cars was run over the entire line. The machinery in the power house at Hyde and California streets stood the strain easily, and literally jerked the cable car over the steep hills.
The line will be in operation for passengers on Thursday morning unless the plans of Superintendent Harris miscarry. He is unwilling to resume operations unless he has a sufficient number of cars in service to supply all demands. At present there are only eight of the new cars in the barn and these are being painted up. Twenty have been ordered, but the remainder of the shipment has not yet arrived. At a pinch the line will operate with the eight cars already on the ground, but it is doubtful whether these can be put into shape by the appointed time.
The line is in condition for traffic now, and the machinery is kept in motion. Two or three of the new cars will be sent over the line to-morrow, both to test the line again and to see that the cars themselves are in working order. The officials are unwilling to start it unless all the cars are ready and the schedule can be carried out without a hitch.
Cars will start at the ferry and go out California street to Presidio avenue, where transfers will be made to the United Railroads.
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Cal Cable Test
For the first time since the fire a car was run over the California street cable line yesterday afternoon. Cheers greeted the car's appearance all along the line.
The car started from the barn at California and Hyde streets promptly at 1 o'clock and ran out to the western terminus of the road. It then returned and crossed the hill to the other end of the road, at Drumm and California streets. The trip was made to test the road and the new cable, and proved in every respect satisfactory.
Among the passengers on the car were: John B. Stetson, president of the road; Alfred Bowes, master mechanic; J. W. Harris, superintendent; George Hare, adjuster; A. McLean, chief engineer; John T. McGee, assistant superintendent; John C. Coleman, a director; Albert Simpson, assistant superintendent; Daniel Buckley, the builder, and Chief of Police Dinan.
"The cars were built by J. Hammond & Co. and I think they deserve a great deal of credit for their quick work," said President Stetson. "They are the first cars to be built in San Francisco since the fire, and were constructed in less than ninety days. We will have four cars carrying passengers tomorrow, and we expect to have eight running by Saturday. Four of these will go out unpainted. We are to have twenty cars built.
"We want to speak a word in appreciation of the conductors and gripmen, who set to work cleaning bricks or doing anything they could to help us get straightened out."
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Note that the Brooklyn Heights line began by using a cable made up entirely of steel wires, rather than steel wires wrapped around a hemp core. The cable had to be welded rather than spliced.
Groups of interested people this morning surrounded a handsome new street car on Montague street bearning the inscription, "Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company, Wall Street Ferry and City Hall. No. 1."
It was the first car of the new cable line from city hall to Wall street ferry, but its appearance did not mean that the line would be opened to-day. The car was being used to draw into place in the underground conduit the steel cable which will furnish motive power to the line, and the cars will not be running until some day next week. The preparation attracted much attention. The cable itself is 9,100 feet long, 1 1/8 inches in diameter, and is of solid twisted steel, instead of being wound around a manilla heart, as the bridge and Harlem cables are. It weighs 2 1/2 pounds the foot or something over eleven tons. Getting it into place was an ingenious operation and began yesterday afternoon. The work will occupy all told about twenty-four hours. The conduit in Montague street is connected with the power house of the company in State street, opposite Willow place, by a brick circular conduit running from the corner of Montague and Hicks streets through Hicks to State and down State to the power house where are engine and spool that will keep the cars in motion. The end of the cable was introduced at the power house and it was done in this way: the conduit through State and Hicks street is seventeen inches in diameter and is only connected with the street by a series of iron convers like those over manholes in a sewer. The covers open upon the pulleys which hold the cable up, like the cable pulleys upon the bridge. A boy started through the conduit from the power house dragging the end of a manilla rope. The boy crawled all the way from the power house to Hicks and Montague streets, dragging the rope behind him to the place in which the cable was to go. As the load became too heavy for the lad men would reach down the conduit holes behing shim, catch the rope and pull it from the power house, leaving the line behind the boy slack. Then the rope was spliced to the end of the cable and this was pulled through by a force of men.
When Montague street was reached a different motive power could be used. A slot through the surface of the street connects with the conduit, through which the grip on the cable underneath connects with the brakes on the car. The end of the cable was made fast to this grip and the car was then drawn along the track by horses, stringing the cable underneath as it went. The course was from Hicks street thorugh Montague to the Court street end of the line on the up track; then to the Wall street ferry on the down track and back to Hicks street on the up. That work was done last night. This morning the agile boy was called into requisition again to draw the guide rope back through the conduit to the power station while men dragged the cable behind him. When that is done nothing will remain at the power station but to weld the two ends of the cable into one, making it an endless chain. That will probably be done Monday by a new process under the supervision of Allen Rodgers, the superintendent of the line brought from the West, where he has had much experience with cable roads in Denver and Cleveland. The grip underneath the cars is not the spool grip in use on the bridge, but an invention which Mr. Rodgers considers an improvement.
There will be eight cars on the line, running every two and a half minutes during the busy hours of the day, and less frequently after the rush is over. They are handsome affairs, painted on the outside in black and gold, with compartments on each end for the gripmen, and twenty-five feet long, with a seating capacity of from forty-four to forty-eight people. The cars are finished inside in polished oak, and are handsomely upholstered. They were built by Lewis & Fowler of this city.
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Note that "brakeman" is used for gripman.
An accident that occasioned a great deal of excitement and injured three persons occurred this morning on the Montague street cable road. Car No. 6 was rolling down toward the Wall street ferry house at 9:30 o'clock in charge of B. Jay Raymond, conductor, and Thomas Halliday brakeman, when just at the turn of the hill approaching Montague terrace the brake chain slipped and the vehiclestarted on a bound and jump for the ferry house. Brakeman Halliday blames an obstinate coach driver for the trouble. He says that for several days he has been annoyed by a private coachman who persistently drove down ahead of his car in the morning and doggedly kept in the tracks, thereby obstructing the road. The wicked coachman was at his old tricks this morning. He was taking his employer to the ferry and he drove in ahead of car No. 6 and kept jogging along at a tantalizing rate just in from of the brakeman. Halliday shoulted to him to get out of the way, but the driver refused to clear the track. The cable was rolling in its sheaves at a uniform speed as usual and Halliday saw that when the steep hill was reached he would inevitably smash into the coach with his car. So, in order to avoid an accident he dropped the cable and allowed the car to travel on its own momentum, goverened by the brakes, until the coachman finally pulled out of the tracks. Then Halliday tried to pick up the cable again, but in this he failed and the car began to roll down the hill in a threatening way. He attempted to apply the brakes but they would not work, and then the brakeman saw that there was trouble ahead, but he stuck manfully to his post. The six passengers and the conductor were not by any means comfortable and they huddled together at the far-away end of the car. In the meantime pedestrians were becoming interested in the conveyance and its occupants as it rolled down the hill. At one time it seemed as if the vehicle would jump the tracks and crash into the ferry house, but luckily the wheels kept on the rails. There is a bumper or stop about two feet high across the track at its termination near the ferry and this brought the vehicle to a standstill. But the car struck it with an awful thump which threw the occupants in a heap and sent glass and splinters flying in all directions. It is a wonder that Halliday was not killed, for the inclosure where he stood was shattered. He was thrown violently against the dashboard and he is now sufferring from shock and injuries to his side. William Byrnes, aged 43, of 803 Putnam avenue, recieved a scalp wound, and Edward O'Grady, aged 37, of 135 1/2 Greene avenue, was also cut on the head. There was a woman on the car, Mrs. Eliza Woodruff, of 6 Prospect street, but she escaped without injury.
Several people ran to the assistance of the passengers when the car stopped, and an ambulance was sent for. Surgeon Miles attended the injured, and they were all able to proceed to their houses. Superintendent Rogers of the railroad company made an investigation, but no arrest was made. The disabled cr was laid up under the arch at Montague terrace, pending its removal to the shop for repair.
The driver of the coach was identified by the policeman at the ferry as Ferdinand Cobb, who is employed, it is said, by E. F. Knowlton, of 201 Columbia heights. It is said that Cobb has been warned repeatedly about his alleged habit of obstructing the cable cars.
Mr. E. F. Knowlton was seen by an EAGLE reporter and said:
"While myself and Mr. Buffum were riding in my coupe down Montague street this morning from the Brooklyn trust company to Wall street ferry, near Hicks street, we passed a car on the down track, which appeared to be unable to proceed from some trouble with the grip and which was being pushed backward toward the hill, under the bridge. We drove by and down the hill, under the bridge, turning out to the right on the side of the track as quick as the width of the street would allow it, looking back all the while, fearing that they would carelessly risk running down the incline with the grip out of order. We soon saw the car coming, apparently beyond the control of the brakeman. It rushed by us and down the hill, the passengers leaping out and being thrown rolling into the dirt. It smashed into the stopping post or obstructions at the foot of the hill. We most fortunately escaped being run over. but is not this road, thus managed, a dangerous affair? Only yesterday we saw a car stopped for similar reasons, but waiting to be aided down the hill by the car following and then held up for repairs. I hope your paper will fairly ventilate the subject.
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Something unexplained happened at 8:15 o’clock this morning to car No. 5 of the cable line, which runs down Montague street from the city hall to the ferry. The car had just started on its way down the hill toward the hill when it stopped suddenly with a jar which threw all the passengers about like corn in a popper. Herman Beck, aged 15 years, of 188 Van Buren street was standing looking through the glass of the front door at the moment of the accident. He was thrown through the window but escaped with a cut chin.
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Hugh McCraken, 30 years old, of 231 East Fifty-eighth street, New York, was severely injured early this morning by an explosion in cable car No. 319 of the Broadway line. McCraken was filling the cylinder beneath the car with illuminating gas. In some unknown manner the gas exploded and blew out the cylinder and also a portion of the flooring. McCraken was blown half way to the door of the car, and when he was picked up it ws found that his face, neck and hand s had been badly burned. A fire alarm was turned in, but there were no flames, and the engines returned to their houses.
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Brooklyn's first cable car line did not open in February.
The proposed cable road of the Atlantic avenue Railroad Company on Park avenue is nearing completion. On Wednesday two immense Corliss engines will be in position on the corner of Grand and Park avenues and will supply the power for the operation of the road. About a week later the cable cars will have been completed and it will be in operation early in February. Mr. William Richardson, the President of the Atlantic avenue Railroad, has been giving the cable project his personal supervision, and expresses himself as highly gratified with the manner in which the work is progressing. This morning he said to an EAGLE reporter: "The company is now asking the consent of property owners on Fifth avenue with the view of operating its line there by cable power. If we get the necessary consents and the cable road on Park avenue proves satisfactory the system will be introduced generally."
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Tom L Johnson was a politician and street railway executive from Cleveland, Ohio.
The Atlantic avenue Railroad Company has leased the Park avenue Cable Road to Tom L. Johnson, of Cleveland, and Alexis L. du Pont, of Wilmington, Del. This line is now being constructed, and begins at Washington and Park avenues, and runs through Park avenue, Broadway, Park street, Beaver, Bushwick avenue, Jefferson street and Central avenue to Evergreen Cemetery. Johnson and du Pont were the contractors, and agree to pay the company 14 per cent. of the gross receipts. They have also agreed to have the road finished and in operation March 15, 1887. They will have the use of the company's tracks from Washington Avenue to Fulton Ferry, and will run horse cars thereon until they can build a cable road. The company reserves the right to use these last named tracks for cable cars on the payment of a pro rata of interest on the cost of construction. The lease was signed April 6, but was not filed with the County Clerk until yesterday.
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Prof. Charles Bryant FAICHILD, 76 years old, formerly editor of "The Street Railway Journal" and a veteran of the Civil War, died last Friday at his country home in Williamstown, Mass. His home was at 752 Greene Avenue. He was a professor of mathematics at Brockport Normal School for some years,after which he went to Raleigh, NC, where he operated a large truck farm and organized and became principal of the first graded school in that city. Then he returned to New York and was a teacher in Public School 31 until he became editor of "The Street Railway Journal," which position he held until ten years ago. He is survived by one son, Charles B., Jr., of Philadelphia, and two daughters, Calphurina, of Brooklyn and Mrs. H. WENTWORTH, of Jamestown, NY. The funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon in the chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery.
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Before it was famous for trolleys, Brooklyn was famous for horsecars.
The work upon the Court street railroad was suspended for a day or two this week, for want of Iron. On Fulton street, near the ‘ferry, we see that the Company are making arrangements to lay down the track.
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Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, was an abolitionist, who supported the Free Soil movement in Nebraska.
The Railroad Company placed several of the new cars on the routes on Saturday for a trial trip. The stockholders and a number of other gentlemen were invited to join in the experiment. The cars came down Fulton street about three o’clock in the afternoon, the horses decorated with plumes and the cars shining in all the splendor of a first coat of paint. The young democracy were "tickled to death" at the sight of the new vehicles, and as the cars remained some time at the foot of Fulton street the boys evidently believing in the squatter sovereignity (sic - JT) took possession of the cars as Mr. GREELY’s (sic - JT) troop threatened to do with the soil of Nebraska; The gentlemen present entered the cars and the whole number of vehicles, some six or seven, whirled along through Fulton street and Myrtle avenue as far as the track is laid. It will soon extend to Division avenue where the new plank road to Jamaica commences. The people everywhere seemed to regard the cars with wonder and delight; in fact they exhibited as much animation and excitement in crowding the sidewalks and store doors as if they had never seen anything on wheels before, beyond the structure of a wheelbarrow.
A smile was on every face, and the babies crowed lustily in the nurses’ arms. The trip established the success of all the arrangements and the adaptation of the cars to the rails. The Company proceeded over the Fulton avenue track, the Court street track, Sands street, &c. In some places the gravel lodged around the rails had not been cleared away sufficiently to make the movement perfectly smooth, but a few runs will remedy all that. Never was any public improvement inaugurated amid a more universal feeling of favor than these railroads. Every citizen regards their introduction, the low fare and superior accommodations with marked approbation; and the entire success of the undertaking, in every point of view, is absolutely certain. Every thing seemed to work in favor of the railroads from their commencement; no injunctions, no delays in procuring materials for the work, no rival interest; nothing was to be encountered that tended to thwart the prosecution of the enterprise. The vigor manifested by the Company, and their punctuality in having the work so far completed at the expected time, affords the proof that the interests of the community will never suffer in their hands.
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Cable operation on Broadway lasted into the Twentieth Century.
The last cable car will be run on the Broadway line, Manhattan, on Saturday nght next, and the whole Metropolitan system will be then operated by electricity. It was thought that the cable would be cut last night, but, owing to a delay in the perfection of the plans, the work had to be postponed for a week. The Lexington avenue road changed from cable to electricity two weeks ago and the Columbus avenue one week ago.
The work on the Broadway line has been going on for some time and the officials of the Metropolitan fear no serious suspension of traffic after the cutting of the cables. They say that all the cars will be operated by electricity on the following Monday morning. At the offices of the Metropolitan Traction Company it was Said that possibly horse cars would be run over the Broadway line to Fifty-ninth street while the work of adjusting the electric wire was going on. This, however, has not been definitely decided upon.
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Miss Lauretta V. May is suing William J. Cockle, a real estate dealer at 164 Montague street, in the Supreme Court, for $1,700 damages and the basis of her suit is an alleged bath of red paint which the fair plaintiff says she received on June 4 last and to which the defendant contributed because of his runaway horse. Miss May says she was damaged $200 to her clothing, $500 injuries done her hair and skin and that the nervous shock, ridicule and embarrassment caused a further injury of $1,000.
According to the story disclosed by the papers Miss May was walking along Montague street on the day of the accident when she heard the noise of a running horse. Looking about she saw that the animal had been frightened by a cable car, and, attached to a wagon, he had taken to the sidewalk and was coming her way. She quickly withdrew to one side but the flying heels of the runaway came in contact with a pot of red paint standing on the sidewalk and it rained a deep carmine upon the plaintiff. It ruined her dress and hat and caused her cheeks to blush vermillion. Miss May says that the accident caused her much mortification and mental distress.
The case was sent to a Sheriff’s jury by Justice Dickey late yesterday afternoon and the damages, if any, will be assessed by a panel of jurors drawn by Sheriff Dike.
A view of Market street before the fire, from the front of a cable car traveling from Castro street to the ferries, was shown by the moving picture machine at the Orpheum theater Thursday night and won the greatest applause that the Orpheum has known since its reopening, the enthusiasm being mingled with tears of many in the audience who knew and loved the busy thoroughfare depicted on the screen before them.
The picture was presented during the intermission in the middle of the performance, and was intended merely as a special feature in recognition of the anniversary of the fire. But while hearty cheers greeted the familiar scenes as they followed one after the other, the pathos of the ravages of the great fire touched many hearts and there were tears in the eyes of scores of onlookers.
Every well known building and corner shown in the moving picture won applause, but the Palace hotel, the Sutter street horsecar seen crossing the city's main artery at the Sutter junction and the final view up Market street were greeted with outbursts of hand clapping which broke the Orpheum record for plaudits.
The film for the picture was taken just prior to the fire and had never been shown before. It was intended to use it only once, Thursday night, but the demands made yesterday for a repetition caused the managers of the theater to decide to continue the picture at every performance this week and next.
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They call an engineer on a cable car in San Francisco Agrippa.
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A southbound Third avenue cable car ran into a team and wagon of the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, 49 Lafayette place, this morning at Twenty-eighth street, Manhattan. The wagon was smashed to pieces and the car was badly damaged, every window in it being broken. The gripman of the cable car, John Moran, had his right hand broken. The driver of the wagon, Hugh McCleary, was thrown off but was uninjured. The only other person injured was Arthu White of 321 East Thirty-Fifth street, who was trying to clear the street after the accident. Part of the wagon fell on him, breaking his leg. He was removed to Bellevue Hospital.
The driver of the wagon was crossing Twenty-eighth street when the accident occurred. The gripman had his hand on the brake and was slowing up, but the horse attached to twagon lurched and the car struck the wagon, driving it against the pillar of the elevated road.
Gripman Moran tried to put on the brake suddenly. He would have been able to stop the car but the read of the wagon struck the hand with which he held the brake and crushed it. The car crashed the wagon against the elevated pillar and made kindling wood of it. Every window in the car was broken, its side was broken and the passengers were thrown to the floor by the shock. There were about a dozen passengers in the car, half of them women. All were flung to the floor and the women shreiked with terror. Some of the men tried to get out of the car. The driver of the wagon was pitched to the street by the shock, but he was picked up and found to be all right. The motorman could not extricate himself from the broken dashboard and door of the car, which pinned him down and was taken out by the police.
The excitement among the passengers was quited after a time and they left the car. None of the passengers was injured. The road was blocked, and in tearing apart the wagon to remove it, White was knocked down and his leg fractured. He was removed to Bellevue Hospital. Moran had his hand attended by an ambulance surgeon and then went home.
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St. Paul, Minn., October 27 -- The street car situation remains about the same. No attempt has been made to run cars on any of the lines, with the exception of the Silby ("Selby" - JT) avenue cable line and the Interurban electric line to Minneapolis. The latter carries the United States mails. It has been kept running under police protection. The company claim that the cars will be running as usual to-morrow morning, but the statement is not credited. The men have not yet decided to order a general strike and the situation still remains a lockout.
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Cables replaced by conduit electrics.
Shortly before 9 o'clock last night workmen began the work of substituting electricity for cable power on the Broadway car lines. With the removal of the cable from Broadway the entire system of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company will be operated by electricity.
The work of changing the motive power on the cable line was started four weeks ago, when the cable was removed from Lexington avenue. A week later the cable was removed from Columbus avenue, and for the past two weeks the cable line has extended only from Fifty-ninth street to the Battery.
The work of substituting the motive power has been going on for many months. Owing to the character of the work involved, the engineers have been extremely careful in having every detail worked out before stopping traffic. They expect that the entire line will be opened by Tuesday, but in the meantime they hope to operate the road as each section is completed.
According to the engineers in charge of the work there are under the road nearly five thousand moving parts, all of which must be taken out in pieces. Besides there are 3,500 sheave wheels on which the cables rested and which will be taken out through the various manholes.
Before the electric current can be turned on more than 200 connections will have to be made, 8,000 plugs removed, and about 40,000 bolts set. one of this work can be done, however, until the cable has been removed.
The last car that carried passengers on the lower section of Broadway left Houston street shortly after 8 o'clock and the Battery at 8:27 o'clock. Starter Thomas Doyle, instead of giving the signal to start the car with his whistle, discharged a revolver. The car contained sixteen passengers.
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Charles Keeler's book San Francisco and Thereabout was published in 1902 by "The California Promotion Committee of San Francisco". The full text is available at San Francisco Genealogy.
VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
Oh the bewilderment of a first view of a big hustling American city! To be dropped off the ferry into the very center of the maelstrom of life, where every mortal is bent upon his own task, where streams and counterstreams of humanity hurry in and out and round about, and all seem at first glance like the chaos of life. After the repose of the country, the wide serenity of the hill-encircled bay, to grapple with the noise and stir of the city! But what a sensation of exhilaration, this elbowing with the eager crowd, this trotting with the pack after the quarry, this pressing on with the tumult of men in the rush for place! Here life and effort are focused, and the great organic forces of the State are centralized and defined. The wheels of the Juggernaut Progress roll along the street and their victims are many, but the victories of peace atone for all the strife, and humanity goes its way, cursing and praying, weeping and singing, fighting and loving, but on the whole advancing from the beast to the angel.
At the foot of Market Street the long low Ferry Building of gray
Colusa stone commands the view, and its graceful clock-tower rises above the
commotion of the city highways. To right and left stretches the waterfront
street, where big docks and wharfs are lined with shipping. Heavy freight
vans rattle and bang over the cobble-stones. Bells are clanging on cable
cars, newsboys are piping the sensation of the hour; there is an undertone
of many voices, a scuffling of hundreds of feet on the cement walks, a
hurrying of the crowd for first place on the cars. From this point of
vantage one might parody the well-known lines of Tennyson into:
Cars to right of you,
Cars to left of you,
Cars in front of your clatter and rumble.
The Market Street cable cars bear the most bewilderingly diverse inscriptions. No two seem alike, yet all roll merrily up the same broad highway. The novice soon discovers that for all practical purposes one is as good as another unless his journey be into the higher residence portions of the city, and he furthermore learns that by a most extensive system of transfers he can keep traveling almost ad lib for one five-cent fare, journeying thus from the bay to the ocean. There is a great parade of cars in front of the Ferry Building. The red and green cable cars of the Washington and Jackson districts come sweeping around a loop out of a side street with clanging bells and a watchman preceeding them. Beyond their stand are electric and horse cars, all off to the right of Market, while to the left several important south-of-Market electric systems start. Here are the fine big cars that run down the peninsula to San Mateo, as well as the Mission and Harrison Street lines.
About the only distinctive feature in the laying out of San Francisco's streets which relieves the prevailing prosaic checkerboard system of American cities, is found in the direction of Market Street which slants boldly across the center of the town. The streets to the north of it were stupidly laid out on the points of the compass, up hill and down dale, but a direct route from the mission to the bay following down the valley, was a matter of so much importance in the early days that this highway was perpetuated in the permanent scheme for the city. The streets of the section south of Market are parallel or at right angles to that thoroughfare, while the district to the north is laid out in streets which run on other lines, making gore blocks at every intersection with Market.
Nearly everyone seems bound up Market Street, either a-foot or a-cable, so why not follow the crowd? Cars of many colors are swinging around on the turn-table one after another, and the man in the house of glass, who I trust never throws stones, is giving them the cue for starting up town. A big underground gong is clanging its warning as the cars swoop upon the turn-table; bells are jangled at the imperturbable crowd, and in some mysterious way people manage to escape being run over.
Jumping on the first car to start, I find an outside seat on the dummy. The bell rings, the gripman throws back his lever which clutches the cable. You can hear the grip work amid the rumble of the start. He hammers away at his foot gong and off we roll! There is a rush of wind down the street, a whirl and confusion of traffic. Wholesale houses and office buildings line the way, mostly landmarks of the old regime with much gingerbread ornamentation, but here and there a fine modern building of stone or terra cotta shows that the city is alive and growing. There is time for but a glance up the streets that shoot off from Market at an acute angle; California, Pine, Bush, are passed in a trice and the corner is reached where Post and Montgomery impinge upon Market. The fine Crocker Building is squeezed in on the gore block between Post and Market while across the way on the south side of Market a whole block is taken up with the Palace Hotel--a monument of bay windows. A sort of Bridge of Sighs crosses New Montgomery connecting the Palace with the Grand Hotel. On the northeast corner of Market and Montgomery Streets, a modern terra-cotta office building is occupied by the business departments of the Southern Pacific Company. Up Montgomery Street, past the Lick House and the Occidental Hotel, both in the architecture of two or three decades ago, is the magnificent Mills Building, one of the most substantial and well proportioned structures of the City. Another massive edifice of fine design is the Hayward Building, a block behond the Mills Building, but the clanging car is rolling up the street and there is no time to itemize the many modern buildings which are daily climbing up on steel frames from the noisy city pave.
Another block of navigating the grip and the coign of observation, the navel of San Francisco is reached. It is the corner of Third, Kearny, and Geary Streets, where the busy life of the city centers. So many people leave the car at this point that 'tis evident there is something doing, and meekly enough I fall in line with the crowd. The three morning papers seek companionship upon the corners here--the Chronicle, whose building is of red sandstone and brick, with its clock tower--a well-known landmark of the city; the Examiner Building, in Spanish style, with simple plaster walls, deep recessed portico at the top, and tile roof; and the Call tower, rising fifteen stories to a fine dome, the most commanding architectural feature of the business district. At this meeting of the ways is Lotta's drinking fountain, a token of which San Franciscans are fond from its association with the soubrette who, in early days, first made fame and fortune here by winning the hearts of the pioneers.
Kearny Street is the highway for shopping, and hosts of fair ladies trip its stony pavements, looking with absorbed attention at window displays of silks and laces, coats and curtains, or casting glances at the latest walking exponent of fads and fashions. Some are lured by the fragrant aroma or tempting window exhibition into the sanctuary of ices and candies; others succumb to the florist, and thus money circulates by the caprice of feminine fancy.
At the Kearny Street corner, right in the shadow of the Chronicle Building, is a bright and attractive feature of the city streets--the flower sellers. They are ranged in a long row on the curb, men and boys standing beside their baskets and holding out bouquets to tempt the wayfarers. The busy stream of humanity sweeps by with fluttering skirts and laughing voices. Electric cars clang up and down, a coachman snaps his whip as a glistening carriage with jingling harness rolls over the asphalt pavement and the horse's hoofs clatter merrily. It is a democratic procession--the negro with his pipe, the traveler with dress-suit case, an officer just returned from the Philippines, and above all, the women, over whom even Rudyard Kipling, with cynic eye and caustic pen, could not but indulge in rhapsodies. Mid all the din and grit of the city, alike in winter as in summer, the flower sellers are at their post, and the perfume of the violet, the sweet-pea and the rose, or whatever may be the flower of the season, steals upon the senses, while the brilliant array of bloom makes an oasis in the desert of stone.
San Francisco is commonly divided into north and south of Market Street. In the early days of the city the aristocratic part of town was in Happy Valley and on Rincon Hill, to the south, but when a citizen, Mr. A.S. Hallidie, successfully solved the problem of climbing the steep hills north of Market by inventing the cable car, people flocked to the heights commanding a view of the bay and the Golden Gate. Then it was that California Street became the nob hill where palaces of ample dimensions were built by the Stanfords, Hopkins, Crockers, Floods and other millionaires, while people of more moderate means settled upon the adjacent hills and slopes. The south of Market section became the home of the artisans for the most part, and certain cross streets, notably Third, Sixth and Eighth, have developed into secondary shopping centers. Mission Street, the first thoroughfare south of Market, is becoming the great wholesale street of the city, and numbers of splendid modern structures, solid, substantial, and simple in design, are being constructed upon it.
The residence district is today reaching out over the hills between the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, while the business section, once crowded down on the made land of the waterfront, is expanding up the residence streets, especially on Geary, Post and Sutter. Post Street is to me one of the most attractive shopping highways, owing to the number of artistic stores which have of late years been established there. The idea, which originated with a picture dealer who commenced in a very modest way, has grown with surprising rapidity. Book stores, bazaars where Oriental brasses and rugs are displayed, collections of artistic photographs, Japanese embroidery and prints, Egyptian embroidery, jewelry, carved and antique furniture are among the displays noted in passing the shop windows. I know of no other American city, not excepting Boston and New York, where on may find the equal in taste and refinement of some of these stores.
To go into a picture house where every detail of furniture, from the carved chairs and simple tables to the lockers with big brass strap hinges, are works of art, studiously harmonious, where wall decoration is considered as well as the pictures selected with so much taste to adorn them--surely this is as inspiring as it is unusual! Then to be led into mysterious back rooms, reserved for sequesrating choice collections of oil paintings, displayed with more generous wall space than any art gallery affords, and other rooms lined with soft Japanese grass-cloth for showing watercolors and etchings! Verily it is enough to surprise the tenderfoot who thinks of San Francisco as the metropolis of the wild and woolly west, where whiskered men in top boots and flannel shirts carry six-shooters in their belts. Some people have slipped a half-centurey cog in picturing California from the other side of the continent. Culture and art have taken on a new lease of life here, and like the exuberant vegetation are already bearing the fruit of the Hesperides. Let us frankly confess that it is to be found only in spots, like oases in a desert of the commonplace, but every wind that blows is scattering broadcast the seeds.
Where but in San Francisco can one find a bookstore like an aesthetic library? Here are books in glass cases, books upon finely designed tables, and, scattered about the room, exquisite antiques in brass and bronze, choice vases and bits of pottery, with a few well chosen photographs and cards on the walls. Other rooms adjoin the main apartment--the old book room where many quaint and curious books in rare bindings are treasured, the children's room and the old furniture room with its quaint fireplace. Another bookseller on the same street, a man of years' experience and standing, has gone extensively into the publication of books by San Francisco authors, and the works which bear his imprint will compare with the output of the best Eastern houses in workmanship and style.
Many cable cars go into the residence district on the heights. We may travel on the California Street cars through the business quarter, even more exclusively the haunt of men than Kearny Street is of women, and up the steep ascent past the Hopkins Art School, looking backward down the street to the bay with the Berkeley Hills and Mount Diablo beyond; or we may be hauled up Clay Street through Chinatown, holding on to our seats the while as best we may to prevent sliding down upon our neighbor, and ultimately get up into the Western Addition out on Jackson Street or Pacific Avenue. There are countless blocks of the older residence portion of the city to be passed en route, built up of painted board houses out of which rows of bay windows bulge vacantly, ornamented with diverse whimsicalities that are as meaningless as they are wearisome. But the cable car jogs on up the hills and down the valleys. An occasional dracaena flutters its ribbon leaves, or a eucalyptus sways its stiff hanging foliage in the fresh sea breeze. Then, as we climb, the vista to the north discloses the blue water of the bay with the purple flanking hills of Tamalpais upon the farther shore. Up steep cobble-stone streets ascends the car, with isolated knobs to the north and northeast--Russian and Telegraph Hills, crowned with buildings. Straight ahead, oceanwards, are more hills up which a series of cars may be seen moving at measured intervals.
Van Ness Avenue is crossed--a broad asphalt street lined with costly homes and large church edifices. Many of the houses are truly palatial in size and style, and an air of wealth pervades the thoroughfare. On clatters the car, rumbling over a crossing and starting up another streep ascent. Here stands an elegant mansion of rough red sandstone, with tile roof, there a quaint brick house with the distinctive features of the Renaissance in domestic architecture. Down the side streets on the lower hills, the city roofs crowd in a gray mass.
Just off from Jackson Street is a simple little brick chruch which has been an inspiration to a growing number of lovers of the genuine and beautiful in life. It matters not whether they are Swedenborgians as the minister of the church happens to be, or have other creedal affiliations. The spirit of the place, with all its quiet restfulness, its homelike charm, its naive grace, has sunk deep in the lives of a small but earnest group of men and women. Within, the stranger is impressed with a certain primitive quality about everything. The heavy madroño trunk rafters left in their natural state, the big open fireplace, the massive square-post, rush-bottom chairs, and the large, grave allegorical landscapes of seedtime and harvest, painted with loving care by William Keith, combine with the simplicity of design and the fitness of every detail, to make a church, which, without any straining after effect, is unique in beauty. The message of its builder has reached his mark, and here and there through city and town, homes have been reared in the same simple fashion--plain, straightforward, genuine homes, covered with unpainted shingles, or built of rough brick, with much natural redwood inside, in broad unvarnished panels. The same reserve which has characterized the building of these homes has likewise been exercised in their furnishing. A few antique rugs, a few good pictures or photographs of the masters, and many good books, with plain tables and chairs, constitute the furniture. To find this spirit, which would have been a delight to William Morris, so strongly rooted as to assume almost the aspect of a cult, is, I take it, one of the most remarkable features of a civilization so new as that of modern San Francisco.
For a bird's-eye view of the city, no point of vantage is more commanding than the summit of Telegraph Hill. An electric car out Kearny Street goes past the base of the hill, but the height must be gained on foot. Just where Kearny Street leads into Broadway, in that tatterdemalion Latin quarter where Mexican and Italian restaurants crowd about the old jail, and the window of every two-penny shop has a name inherited from Spain or Italy, we leave the car and climb the steep road. Many of the side streets are passable only for pedestrians. Flights of steps or broad chicken-ladders lead to houses perched on rocky heights. It is a famous place for goats, which graze on old newspaper and shavings, looking at you the while with wistful expressions on their bearded countenances.
Panting, we reach the summit and gaze abroad for the first impression. What a view is spread about within the wide sweep of horizon--of life with all its varied activities--commerce, manufactures, homes! It is like sitting down with a whole metropolis wriggling under the microscope! The great frame barn-like dilapidated castle interrupts a portion of the view to northward, but otherwise the whole varied panorama can be taken in by a turn of the head. To the east and northeast, lies the expanse of blue water bounded by the far-away green hills of the Contra Costa shore, rising gradually to the highest point in Grizzly Peak of the Berkeley Range. Goat Island, a green mound in the center of the bay, is humped up in front of Berkeley. To the south of it, Oakland lines the bay shore.
Around northwestwardly stands the Bolinas Ridge, with the waters of the Golden Gate at its base. Fort Point protrudes on the south, with Point Bonita beyond it on the north shore, and still farther off, just a glimpse of the glistening blue ocean. So much for the bay view which curves around the marvelous panorama of the city! At the wharves is a fringe of shipping. Men and horses move about the docks like black pygmies. The rumble of vans ascends from the cobble-stone pavement, and the explosive puffs of a gasoline engine are heard.
But the city, oh the city, how it crowds the hills with a wilderness of gray walls and windows, cleft here and there by the lines of parallel streets which dare to climb the most forbidding heights! How it is spread out there on the slopes, with lofty tower buildings rising from the plain, and a line of pale hills fading beyond into purple behind a veil of smoke! Near at hand, in front of the Greek church, with its green, copper-capped turret, is a little patch of grass. Beyond it, on Russian Hill, are some artistic homes with a bit of shrubbery on the adjacent hillslope. Clothes are hanging out to dry on flat roofs far below. The clang and din filters up from the plain in subdues tones, with the shrill voices of children caught by a veering gust of wind. What a chaos of dull houses, thrilling with life, each enclosing its family history, its triumph or tragedy, but all so immovable and unindividual as I look upon the mass!
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Frank Norris' novel, Blix, is a love story, which bears little resemblance to his other novels. In these excerpts, an anonymous cable car line and a Union Street train of the Presidio and Ferries Railway are important parts of the scene.
Chapter III
Just then his eye was caught by a familiar figure in trim, well-fitting black halted on the opposite corner waiting for the passage of a cable car. It was Travis Bessemer. No one but she could carry off such rigorous simplicity in the matter of dress so well: black skirt, black Russian blouse, tiny black bonnet and black veil, white kids with black stitching. Simplicity itself. Yet the style of her, as Condy Rivers told himself, flew up and hit you in the face; and her figure--was there anything more perfect? and the soft pretty effect of her yellow hair seen through the veil--could anything be more fetching? and her smart carriage and the fling of her fine broad shoulders, and--no, it was no use; Condy had to run down to speak to her.
Chapter IX
The old-fashioned Union Street cable car, with its low, comfortable outside seats, put Blix and Condy down just inside the Presidio Government Reservation. Condy asked a direction of a sentry nursing his Krag-Jorgensen at the terminus of the track, and then with Blix set off down the long board walk through the tunnel of overhanging evergreens.
Frank Norris's Blix was published in 1899. The full text is available at On-Line Books.
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Jack London's novel White Fang is an adventure story set in the Alaskan Gold Rush.
White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was appalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness, he had associated power with god-head. And never had the white men seemed such marvelous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replaced by towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils-wagons, carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electric cars hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in the northern woods.
Jack London's White Fang was published in 19xx. The full text is available at Bibliomania.
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With the three hundred dollars he had got for his book, less the price of his passage, changed into German bank-notes and gold pieces, and safely buttoned in the breast pocket of his waistcoat, he felt as safe from pillage as from poverty when he came out from buying his ticket; he covertly pressed his arm against his breast from time to time, for the joy of feeling his money there and not from any fear of finding it gone. He wanted to sing, he wanted to dance; he could not believe it was he, as he rode up the lonely length of Broadway in the cable-car, between the wild irregular walls of the canyon which the cable-cars have all to themselves at the end of a summer afternoon. He went and dined, and he thought he dined well, at a Spanish-American restaurant, for fifty cents, with a half-bottle of California claret included. When he came back to Broadway he was aware that it was stiflingly hot in the pinkish twilight, but he took a cable-car again in lack of other pastime, and the motion served the purpose of a breeze, which he made the most of by keeping his hat off. It did not really matter to him whether it was hot or cool; he was imparadised in weather which had nothing to do with the temperature.
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Senator Dianne Feinstein. |
Dianne Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco during the Great Reconstruction of 1983-84.
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Robert Gillham was born in 1854 in New York. Trained as an engineer, Gillham moved to Kansas City in 1878. He proposed a cable railway to connect Union Depot with Quality Hill. The Kansas City Cable Railway's Ninth Street incline became a city landmark. Gillham later built the Eighth Street Tunnel of the Interstate Consolidated Rapid Transit Company. In 1891, Gillham designed the Brooklyn Heights Railroad. Gillham also organized and served as chief engineer of many railways, street and mainline. He built the Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Gulf Railroad and served as its general manager. Robert Gillham died of pneumonia in 1899.
The Kansas City Public Library has an article about Robert Gillham.
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Henry Root in 1920. |
Henry Root, an influential cable railway engineer, was born in Vermont in 1845. He worked as surveyor and engineer on Central Pacific Railroad through the Sierra and across Nevada.
In 1877, Leland Stanford, one of the owners of the Central Pacific, hired Root to design and build the California Street Cable Railroad. Stanford initially refused to pay the Traction Railway Company $40,000.00 for a license. After the Trust sued for infringement, Stanford was forced to pay $30,000.00. Root's innovations on the California Street line, especially a reinforced concrete conduit, were the basis of important patents.
When Stanford promoted the Market Street Cable Railway in 1883, he engaged Root to design and build it. For this line, Root developed the combination car, with an open and closed section on one car. Root later designed the double ended combination car still used on California Street.
Both lines used a single jaw side grip that was widely imitated, legally and otherwise, in the cable railway industry.
Root wrote a privately published autobiography: Henry Root, Personal History and Reminiscences with Personal Opinions on Contemporary Events 1845-1921. Only 100 copies were printed.
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Howard C Holmes, engineer (Source: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Supplement I, 1910). |
Engineer Howard Carleton Holmes was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts on 10-June-1854. He came to San Francisco when he was 5.
Holmes designed the Ferries & Cliff House Railway's lines. According to an obituary in The San Francisco Bay Marine Piling Survey, Second Annual Progress Report (1922), he was also involved with building the Presidio & Ferries Railway, the extension of the California Street Cable Railroad to Market Street and the new O'Farrell/Jones/Hyde line, the Portland Cable Railway, the Spokane Cable Railway, and the Madison Street Cable Railway in Seattle. He also built electric lines in Stockton, Sacramento, and Oakland.
He became Chief Engineer of the State Board of Harbor Commissioners and built the Ferry Building and many of the piers in San Francisco.
Howard C Holmes married Josephone Bauer of Philadelphia in 1883. He died on 30-October-1921.
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18-Mar-2002 marks the 150th anniversary of Wells Fargo |
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27-Jan-2002 marks the 125th anniversary of cable traction on the Sutter Street Railway. Visit the San Francisco Cable Car Museum site for Walter Rice's article "Celebrating 125th Anniversary of San Francisco's Second Cable Car, The Sutter Street Railroad - History & Technology". |
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Do you remember when Santa arrived at the Emporium by cable car? Read Joe Lacey's Christmas on the Cables to find out more. |
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I offer my respect to the brave people of London who defied the attacks of terrorists and carried on with their lives after the bombings on July 7, 2005. I offer my sympathy to the families of those who were killed or injured. I remember the words of Winston Churchill during another time of terror: "London Can Take It". |
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