From Small Town to Downtown
Subtitle: A History of the Jewett Car Company, 1893-1919 (Railroads Past and Present)
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: April 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9780253343697
Subjects: Railway transport industries; USA; Automotive - History; Infrastructure; Railroads - General; Cars; History; Jewett Car Company; Railroads; Transportation
First sentence: The early 1890s was a time of great optimism for street-railway promoters.
Description: The Jewett Car Company was born in the heyday of the electric railway boom in the 1890s. The company gained an excellent reputation for its elegant, well-built wooden cars for street railway companies, interurban lines, and rapid transit service. Cities large and small used Jewett cars, including New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. Many Jewett cars found their way to Indiana, and many of the interurban lines employed the graceful, arch-windowed, wood interurban that Jewett was famous for. Competition from automobiles and from larger car builders such as J. G. Brill and the St. Louis Car Company signaled the beginning of the end for Jewett. The company was offered the opportunity to produce munitions for World War I, but refused when a German nationalist banker who was a major source of funding for Jewett refused to allow the company to do anything that would harm Germany. As a result, the Jewett Car Company died, but the reputation of their product survives to this day.