The times., 1899-05-28
OUR FIRST ELECTRIC ROAD.
Built at Denver Fourteen Years Aso
with nm Underground Trolley.
lFrom &c New York snn.


States. built in Denver in 1885. was,
strangely enough, an underground trolley
system, almost exactly like the one now
adopted as the last development of cleo
trio railroading in 1892" says S. II. Short
Il happen to know the facts about the first
electric railway commercially operated in
this country because | built it. l designed
the cars. made and wound the motors and
ran the line at time when the cable was
being substituted for horse power on the
surface roads OF Philadelphia-5now the
great overhead trolley city of the country.
An overhead trolley even was then uu-
known. The steam cable. which had been
in successful operation in Cincinnati San
Francisco and perhaps other American
cities, was generally considered in 1885 to
offer the most efficient substitute for horse
cars.
Il was led to a different conclusion, al
though | was then only twenty-ssven years
of age. and by no means willing to pit my
self against practical railroad experts. /
was convinced electricity could be safely
and securely harnessed. Soon after my
matriculation in the Ohio State University,
in 1875, l was foreunate enough to make
friend of the manager OF the Western
Union telegraph Office in Columbus. He
permitted me to use the company's cast
off apparatus. and | became expert in te-
legraphy. In the basement OF the college
building in Denver ! constructed from my
own designs an electric railroad. The mo-
tors were unlike any other ever built, and
the two cars which l built, wood, metal,
! and all. were for some time operated on
this track, single line, with turnouts. and
were ridden in by many people. This was
in 1881.
The vast possibilities of electric railway
traction gradually grew on me. In the
meantime | went to live in Denver, where
| I cd RI -
chemistry in the University of Denver
There l built the Joseph Henry, double
| trolley car with fye-horse power motors,
and ran it on an elliptical track. So i'm
pressed were the capitalists then interested
| in my experiments that the Denver Tram
way Company was organized. closed
conduit system was installed in fremont
Street, and in Fifteenth Street from Capitol
| Hill to North Denver in the summer of
1885. The municipal ordinances viii show
the exact date. Five regular standard size
| street cars, with controller on each plat
| form, were operated on this line in Dem
| yer fer three years. There was one motor
to each car, geared to the axle. The slot
I was only half an inch wide, and in the
extreme cold winters of the Rocky Noun
tains this slot would contract until il in
terfered seriously with traffic. There were
no sewerage connections in the streets,
and the problem of drainage bothered US.
Yet the road was in spite of all. a CONNER
cial success. 1t paid.
THE condition of the streets in the re-
spects mentioned was the only reason why
cable was, after some years, substituted
for this sub trolley, and overhead trolley
afterward for the cable. At that time the
Budapest sub-trolley system, which. with
improvements, is now the one adopted BY
the Metropolitan Traction Company in the
city of New York as the best in the world
was not in existence. But the Denver
sub-trolley was in actual successful COM
mercial operation.
Nor is it strange that a Rocky Noun
tain city should have been the first Ameri-
can community to use electric traction
The electric light was generally in use in
Rocky Mountain towns long before it was
introduced in the Middle and Eastern
States. The streets of Butte. Montana
then the greatest mining camp in the
) world. were lighted by arc lights in 1881
actually before there was a steam rail
T road within many miles OF the camp. Peo-
pie who arrived in oid-fashioned Rocky
: Mountain stage coaches were surprised OF
alighting TO find the streets brilliantly il
: Illuminated by electricity.
''Since that time have devoted mysel
, especially to electrical railroading In tn,
/ year 1898 there was scarcely a town o.
commercial size in the country that hadn'
its electric railways. Yet fourteen year.
: have barely elapsed since the first one wa!
: built. 1t is as a result of my own expert.
| ence that 1 am confidently looking to Sc,
the operation Of trunk line railroads o
standard gauge by electricity. The prob
: lem is fascinating one, involving almos
2 a revolution in our social life so grea
is the gulf between so and $50 miles ar
2 hour This would be the crowning achieve
! ment, or rather the supreme result of tht
I labors of those pioneers who, like ROber
S Davidson. foreshadowed as long ago a
1888 what might some day be realized Jus
: half century has elapsed since Davidson
G moved by electricity a ten-foot car equip
e ped with forty cells of primary batteries
e at the rate of four miles an hour In 1873
= at the Berlin Industrial Exhibition, Sic
, mems & Halske exhibited an electriea
n railroad. In the fail of 1888 Leo Daft ope
S rated an electrical locomotive called tn
= Ampere, on the little railroad up Noun
: McGregor. New York. In 1884 E. NJ
!, Bentley and w. H. knight ran experimen
n tally in Cleveland, Ohio an electric rail
e road with motors under the floors Of tn
= cars. The great Thomson Houston sys
e TEN was founded on their patents and o
J, those of Van de Poele.
/, THE second conduit road constructed
the United States was laid on the Bent
e ley knight system in Allegheny, Pa, an
: in 1887 the third commercial electric rail
1t way was installed by f. ]. sprague
e Richmond.
o THE achievements of the past fourtee
: years read like fairy tale. But it woul
: not be strange If men ROW living break
u tasted in New York and lunched in Chi
: cago.'