Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-08-17

Omaha had a population of no more than
1900 and outside capital would have found
absolutely nothing attractive about the
proposition. Among the men who were brave
enough to push it and stand behind II
WIRE A ]. Hanscom, Augustus Kountze and
Ezra Willard, some OF Omaha oldest and
most steadfast boosters. @. W. Frost was
the first president.
Construction began at Ninth and Farnam
and the line ran westward and northward
ending finally at 21st and Cunning street
Delegates to the capitol. which stood where
the old high school building Is now, and
the stockholders were about the only
people who took the trouble to use 1t in
those days.
The equipment to start with was four
cars and about thirty horses. One other
car was bought in Chicago, the first one
ever brought to Omaha to be used on a
street railway, but it proved to be worth
less 1t was second hand omnibus and had
to be discarded. 1t is still in the poses
sion of the company. The service was once
every fourteent minutes and the cars made
a little better than four miles an hour.
Fare was 10 cents, and was collected by
the driver. The conductor being dispensed
with as a useless encumbrance.
The receipts of the company were about
$50 a day. Now they are nearly 5000.
Cable system,
By 1873 the business was fairly prosperous.
but cable tramways were beginning to find
favor in other cities and a company was
organized and entered the field to carry
passengers by cable power. Five years
later electricity was a second newcomer
and the Omaha Motor company was
formed to boost trolleys.
Omaha now had three companies. They
had parts of their tracks all on the same
streets, they quarrelled continually with
one another and passengers had to pay
double fares unless some single line could
carry them their whole journey.
This condition could not last very long
and after buying up the cable company the
original company started in to run electric
cars This brought the motor company to
time and in the same year, 1889, that COM
pany was also made a part of the single
system.
Since then, with the natural growth Of
the city and with the efforts of the street
railway company to give efficient service
has ceme the growth which makes the en-
terprise so important today.
The outlay of money to keep such a COM
pany going is enormous, especially when II
is figured in nickel fares. Running along
the streets of Omaha, South Omaha, Coun-
ell Bluffs, Benson, Dundee and Florence
there are $50 miles of street railway track.
Dsregarding the cost of laying this net
work of steel the cost of keeping 1t going
after 1t is once started is big enough to use
up q large share of the profits.
AS the average life of a piece Of steel
track under trolley car wear is about ten
years at least fifteen miles OF the track
must be relaid every year. This does not
represent the total track expense by a
large sum, however, as new extensions are
in the process of building all the time.
Many improvements.
In the downtown districts alone the com.
pany spent $125,OOO for construction in the
first seven months of the present year
and this figure does not Inc ude the new
power houses and car barns that are beinE
raised. The general manager Of the roat
is practically a constructing engineer and
he has on his hands fifty or more big un
dertakings all the time Tracks, buildings
and rolling stock all need constant i'm
provement. During the last few months
the gangs were at work rebuilding tracks
over the following parts of Omaha's prin
cipal streets Cunning from Sixteenth 4
| Twenty-fifth avenue; Dodge, Tenth 20 Six
! teenth; Twelfth, Douglas to Howard Four
J teenth, Davenport to Howard Fortieth
! Farnam to Dodge; Seventeenth, Wcbste
to Cunning; and Harvey, Tenth to Fifteenth
| streets
All summer lorg gang of about 400 mel