Could STUPID run in a name?

[Ocklawaha]

I give you one of our many little sister cities, Jacksonville Illinois

CITY TRANSIT HISTORY
1867-1905 - Jacksonville Railway Co.
1905-1923 - Illinois Power & Light Co.
1923-1929 - Illinois Power & Light Co. (North American Light & Power Co.)
1929 - streetcars discontinued

Of course most cities did the same thing, I mean, after all, would you scrap a streetcar system if I would replace it with brand new buses (at no cost to you OF COURSE) and if I toss in a brand new GM luxury car for you and your fellow city council members? That's how they did it in many places.

Spending some time researching streetcars in our little sister city I came across this incredible photo.

This building, which once housed the Jacksonville street railway cars at 520 E. State St., was demolished in 2003. The brick building was constructed in 1901 to house a large fleet of trolley cars. This photograph dates from about 1916. The car barn later was used for storage by Illinois Power Co. and then by several other businesses, including a building supply firm and a waterbed store.

OKAY JAXSON'S I'M CONVINCED STUPID DOES RUN IN A NAME! THIS BEAUTIFUL HISTORIC BUILDING WAS DEMOLISHED IN 2003!

HISTORY: (from the JACKSONVILLE JOURNAL COURIER)


The Way We Were: Street railway was popular in Jacksonville
December 05, 2011 6:33 AM

Receipts for the first day of business for Jacksonville’s street railway amounted to $45.70. That was quite good considering adults only had to pay around 7 cents to ride.

The first passengers on the city’s streetcars boarded in December 1870. Each car at that time was pulled by a single horse and could accommodate 12 people.

Streetcars were popular from the start. The cash receipts for the railway were $400 for December 1871, a month which saw 6,426 ride the conveyances.

The Jacksonville Street Railway Co. was incorporated in 1867, but it took three years to get cars running. One of the incorporators was longtime local entrepreneur and railway contractor Col. James Dunlap, who early on raised the ire of city fathers for his actions involving the rail line.

“Mayor (George) McConnel has thrown the fear of the hereafter into Col. Dunlap, who yesterday removed the two sections of horse railway track he had laid from the west entrance of the (Central) park, contrary to city ordinance,” wrote a Journal reporter in the fall of 1872.

The length of the streetcar system varied over the years, but, generally speaking, it radiated from the public square out the principal streets of East and West State and North and South Main. The North Main Street line is believed to have been added in the early 1900s.

In the late 19th century, streetcars and horses were housed in a building located at the end of Asylum Street (now Woodland Place), just south of Mound Avenue, a sometimes inconvenient place. “It took four horses to pull the first streetcar up the hill from the west end car house yesterday morning,” the Journal reported in January 1885.

Complaints occasionally arose from unhappy riders, as the following newspaper item from 1887 points out. “There is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the streetcar patrons of the south end line on account of the discrimination shown in placing stoves on the West State Street line, to the utter exclusion of South Main Street, and they hope the company will make an effort to treat all alike.” It’s unknown if South Main riders ever got to enjoy heated streetcars.

Horses that pulled streetcars walked on wooden planks laid between the rails. In 1889, the railway company placed cleats on the South Main Street planks between College Avenue and the square to aid the horses “ascending the steep grade on that part of the street.”

Jacksonville streets, including those where the streetcars operated, were not paved until the late 1800s, and then only a few of the main thoroughfares were covered in brick. In the summer, thick clouds of dust on streets could choke a good horse, while rains made them nearly impassable.

Horse power gave way to electric power in 1892. “At last we have heard the whiz of the electric streetcars and have seen the cars themselves go whirling by,” wrote a Journal reporter in April 1892. “The project is no longer a dream or a future possibility, but a fact, and all praise is due the energetic owners of the road who have done so much to advance the interest of our beautiful city.”

The owners who electrified the street railway were the Hooks,  principally William S. and his sister, Frances, or “Fannie.” For many years, Fannie Hook oversaw the operation of the line, making numerous improvements to the track and the streetcars. She reportedly wore suits with trousers and smoked cigars long before either habit was socially acceptable.

Details about the history of the streetcar line are not readily available. However, it is known that the Hook family sold the railway to the Illinois Traction Co. in 1905 for “something over $100,000.”

Jacksonville’s street railway was bought by Illinois Power & Light Corp. around 1923, and streetcar service stopped here on Aug. 1, 1930.

[Noone]

Thanks for the history lesson. Torn down 9 years ago. So what is there today?

[I-10east]

*Que the people who still think we should change the city's name* SMH.