Was there ever a streetcar that ran on Electric st. in Downriver

[MysticalHalf]

Been looking on Google Earth and other maps and I started wondering, if there ever was a Electric Street Car that ran on Electric street to Detroit from the downriver area. Or is it just named electric st. because that is where the large power lines are. If you look on google earth though you can clearly see a direct path from downriver to detroit, meeting up with fort street. Where I'm pretty sure was a streetcar line. Any Info is appreciated, Just doing some late night pondering.

[reddog289]

While looking through my DSR book vol2. I saw a map on page 154 and a couple of photos that might help on 168. Can't scan or post, sorry. I belive it was the Fort/Kercheval line.

[1KielsonDrive]

As far as I remember, not from actual experience, Electric Street was the route of the electric trains called the Interurbans. That route would've been going to Toledo. There are books available about the Interurbans. Call or stop by your library. Libraries and librarians are amazing sources of information. The building housing the DetroitYes offices on Grand River in Farmington was a power house for the Interurban line running to Lansing.

[jcole]

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Eddy Grant.

[dodgemain]

Yes there was. There was a interurban track and I believe a freight track. Look on the overhead images at the Eureka train bridges and the bridge that led there is still there. Most of that history is in this site.

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/

[EastsideAl]

It was the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Short Line, an interurban streetcar line. The final stretch between Trenton and Monroe opened in 1905, completing the line.

Here is a map of Ecorse Township [[modern-day River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, etc.) and Springwells Township [[now mostly in SW Detroit) showing the line running down Fort St. west out of the city and then going off onto what's now Electric, near where Fort takes its southward turn past the Rouge River. Map shows a lot of other lines too, including the main heavy rail lines, and the interurban on what's now Jefferson going to Wyandotte.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...iew=pdf&seq=22

Open map, change format in upper left pull-down menu to "pdf", then you can zoom in to see much more detail.

[EastsideAl]

What's amazing to me is that we had electric commuter rail running all over the area [[and many other areas in the country) 100 years ago. When Detroit was a city of a few hundred thousand people you could take streetcars to all corners of the city, and electric interurban lines all the way to Toledo, Lansing, Flint, etc. Now it's apparently a nearly insurmountable problem to build one as far as Grand Blvd. What the hell happened to us?

[MysticalHalf]

totally agree with what dodgemain said, if you look on Eureka by the tracks Near electric you can totolly see the old bridge, i live in wyandotte and seen that many times before, its now paved walkway leading to 9th street north to 9th street south.

[MysticalHalf]

EastsideAl is 100% right with what he said to, having problems getting a communter train to grand blvd. from downtown in present times, and they had 100s of miles of track a century ago leading to every part of the surrounding area.

[PeachLaser]

What's amazing to me is that we had electric commuter rail running all over the area [[and many other areas in the country) 100 years ago. When Detroit was a city of a few hundred thousand people you could take streetcars to all corners of the city, and electric interurban lines all the way to Toledo, Lansing, Flint, etc. Now it's apparently a nearly insurmountable problem to build one as far as Grand Blvd. What the hell happened to us?

I agree Eastside. Not just in Detroit, but in a lot of our cities. Here's a link of the photos of the old street cars that I took in San Francisco. The cars are painted in the colors of their respective city.

Posted this several years ago, but thought people would enjoy once again...

http://www.lasersol.com/history/sf_f_line.html

[MysticalHalf]

Looked online at the map EastsideAl put up it clearly shows the line heading basically parallel with Fort street. It is called Detroit Monroe & Toledo Short Line. It follows electric st. running parallel with fort st. going south, cutting over with Electric St. into Lincoln Park, Wyandotte, Riverview, Trenton. Heading towards Monroe and then to Toledo.

[EastsideAl]

And I say all that despite the damage wrought to my family by those danged interurbans. My great-grandfather was struck and killed by a Port Huron interurban in 1911 when his car stalled on the tracks at a very bad moment on 9 Mile in what's today East Detroit [[ummm, sorry, Eastpointe).

[1KielsonDrive]

If you walk outside of the River Crab [[Chuck Muer's old place on the river near Port Huron. Is it St. Clair?) you can see where the Interurban tracks used to be. That is, unless they've widened the road. I think there was also a Michigan Historic Plaque nearby explaining the Interurbans.

[lpg]

A few years back I encountered a large pothole on O'Conner St. where it crosses Electric in Lincoln Park. I saw something in the bottom of the hole. It was one of the rails from the Interurban. My mom and aunt told me when the line was discontinued the rails were just buried or asphalted over. Since my mom's side of the family has lived in Lincoln Park since sometime in 1914 they both remembered the cars running down Electric and also the accidents that occured.

[lalynch]

Been looking on Google Earth and other maps and I started wondering, if there ever was a Electric Street Car that ran on Electric street to Detroit from the downriver area. Or is it just named electric st. because that is where the large power lines are. If you look on google earth though you can clearly see a direct path from downriver to detroit, meeting up with fort street. Where I'm pretty sure was a streetcar line. Any Info is appreciated, Just doing some late night pondering.

Yes, the Inter-Urban did run along Electric Avenue. Refer to the Arcadia Publishing book Lincoln Park for more information.

[Sandhouse]

Wherever you encounter an "Electric Avenue" it's almost certain to have been the route of a streetcar or interurban, and possibly the first street in that town to have been served with electricity and electric streetlights. Frequently these utilities were all installed by the streetcar company. Probably the adjacent subdivision was developed simultaneous with the streetcars. The alignment of Electric Avenue through Detroit and Lincoln Park is a dead giveaway that this was once a railroad.

For a brief period around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, it was possible to go from Massachusetts to somewhere in Illinois by interconnected electric interurban lines, without using a steam railroad. One special trip was run carrying electric railway businessmen and local promoters over the longest continuous route, before the network began to be broken up due to abandonment.

[bc_n_dtown]

Here is a map of Ecorse Township [[modern-day River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, etc.) and Springwells Township [[now mostly in SW Detroit) showing the line running down Fort St. west out of the city and then going off onto what's now Electric, near where Fort takes its southward turn past the Rouge River.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...iew=pdf&seq=22

Although not as clearly depicted as it should be in the map link posted by EastsideAl, the original route of the Detroit-Toledo interurban initially veered south off of W. Fort Street via its own separate bridge across the Rouge River into Springwells Township before traveling along what's now S. Patricia Street and eventually along Liebold Street [[later renamed Electric). However, after the Fort Street drawbridge was constructed in 1922 to allow Great Lakes freighters access to the FoMoCo Rouge facility the cars were rerouted across the new drawbridge onto S. Fort before crossing over to the interurban private right-of-way.

However, because of increasing motor traffic congestion downtown, the DUR opened a new transfer station in April of 1925 on Fort Street just west of the Rouge River bridge. This resulted in most of the Toledo interurbans now terminating at this new Oakwood Terminal and express buses being used to continue the route into downtown.

Attachment 3509
This 1923 photo shows a DUR interurban atop the then recently constructed Fort Street River Rouge bridge. [[Bill Volkmer photo)

[bc_n_dtown]

For 22 years the DSR would also operate its streetcars along the Detroit [[Electric Street) portion of the Detroit-Toledo interurban railway. After the interurban operation ceased in 1932, the DSR would continue to operate along those rails for the next 17 years.

In November of 1927, the DSR decided to extend its Fort-West streetcar line westward from Fort Street and Dearborn Avenue [[near the former city limits) to service the territory recently annexed by the city in 1922 from Springwells Twp. Instead of building new trackage, the Fort line would utilize the interurban private right-of-way originally built for the Detroit, Monroe & Toledo Short Line Railway [[1904-1906) along Electric Street.

After crossing the Fort Street drawbridge over the Rouge River, the cars traveled about two blocks along S. Fort, then one block via a center median P.R.W. where they would then turn left onto Stocker Street.

[[Check out this WSU Virtual Motor City photo link which looks along S. Fort at the rail cross-over onto Stocker St.)

After a block or so the cars would turn south onto the Detroit-Toledo interurban trackage, now owned by the Toledo Division of the Detroit United Railway [[DUR). Prior to entering center-of-street operation along Electric Street, a P.R.W. carried the cars through a heavy industrial area between Stocker and Schaefer Hwy. It was along this stretch, just south of Stocker, that the cars would travel through a narrow railroad trestle bridge across six railroad tracks belonging to the Michigan Central, Pennsylvania, and Wabash railroads, and then across a creek before entering the more residential Electric Street section. The DSR also built a "wye" turn-around two blocks inside the city limits in the vicinity of Electric and Gleason, that would serve as the western terminus for the extended line. Initially, the DSR leased the tracks but later purchased the rails in 1936 after the Toledo interurban service had been abandoned by Eastern Michigan Railways.

In 1932, the DSR combined its Fort-West line with its east-side Kercheval line, resulting in a longer cross-the-town Fort-Kercheval line. The Fort Street portion of the line was converted over to buses in 1949 and the combined route was separated.
Attachment 3511
This photo looks northeast along Electric Blvd. just south of Gleason in southwest Detroit sometime between 1946 and 1949 as car #3303 prepares to enter the "wye" turn-around built at the end of the Fort Street line. Note the sparsely populated post-war neighborhood prior to the homes currently there being constructed.
[[Norm MacDonald photo - Krambles-Peterson Archives)

[EastsideAl]

Great stuff BC, thanks. While I knew those tracks had been used for the interurban, not being a southwest sider I had never realized that the DSR had used them for a while too.

[MysticalHalf]

i live in Wyandotte and i always figured there was a interurban route, never knew that's what they were called but i do now thanks to all you folks. very interesting topic thanks for everyone's input. gotta love that downriver history always gets me pondering.

[reddog289]

I myself enjoy the old photos of the DSR,DUR, and other electric lines that ran across this area. When I was younger my Dad found a RR spike in our yard while digging.We were north of the old interurban line between Wayne and Northville. While I CANNOT say how it got there, I just imagine that a member of the M.O.W. crew was showing off and pitched it into the woods back then.
Glad I kept it.