Date of Award
5-1999
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
History: M.A.
Department
History
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Don Hofsommer
Second Advisor
Mary Glade
Third Advisor
William Morgan
Keywords and Subject Headings
Minneapolis Street Railway history beginning to end
Abstract
From its incorporation in 1873, until Thomas Lowry, real estate investor and promoter was named President of the Minneapolis Street Railway in 1878, the company was in precarious financial condition: Nevertheless, Lowry saw the street railway as having the potential to enhance his real estate investments.
The year 1889 was one of significant change in the company's fortunes. The Company had reached an agreement with the Minneapolis City Council to install a cable system, but at the same time that the agreement on cable had been reached, the company had received authorization to install an electric line as an experiment. The latter was such a success that the company, with the city's authorization, adopted electricity as the motive power for all its transit cars. No cable cars ever saw service in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Street Railway had been granted an exclusive franchise to operate the streetcar lines in the City of Minneapolis. The franchise, granted in 1875, was not due to expire until July 23, 1923, but in 1889 it had been attacked by a potential rival, Anderson, Douglas & Co., as invalid. They argued that exclusivity depended on the streetcars being operated by pneumatic power or drawn by horse. As neither cable nor electricity fit the description of the franchise agreement, the claim was made that the franchise should be declared void. The City Council set aside their argument.
In 1921, just two years before the original fifty-year franchise was due to expire, the State of Minnesota intervened with passage of the Brooks-Coleman Act. This legislation allowed transit franchises to be canceled and replaced by state-issued indeterminate permits. The cities could retain control of street railways, with one exception--fares--which would come under the jurisdiction of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission. The intent had been to make rate requests less political; in fact, they had made them more so. In 1949, after a nineteen-year period when only one common stock dividend had been paid, management was replaced. The new leadership of the company had been accused by its predecessors of being more interested in the payment of dividends than in providing transit services. Streetcars were eliminated as a cost-saving measure.
After World War II, the movement of the population to the suburbs quickened, suburbs where mass transit was not an option, and where the transit vehicle of choice had become the automobile.
Recommended Citation
Solberg, Edward W., "The Minneapolis Street Railway Emergence to Disappearance" (1999). Culminating Projects in History. 35.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hist_etds/35
