Streetcars in St. Louis facts for kids
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Streetcars in St. Louis, Missouri, were a big part of the city's transportation for over 100 years. They ran from the mid-1800s until the early 1960s.
In the beginning, many different private companies ran the streetcar lines. Around 1898, a law was passed that made these companies get special permits. Soon, one big company called United Railways bought up most of the smaller ones. This company later became the St. Louis Public Service Company in 1927. It served both the city of St. Louis and nearby St. Louis County, Missouri.
Starting in the 1920s, buses began to take the place of streetcars. The very last streetcar in St. Louis ran in 1966. Today, many MetroBus routes still follow the old streetcar paths and even keep their names.
In 2018, a new heritage streetcar line opened in the Delmar Loop area. This line, called the Loop Trolley, is 2.2 miles (3.5 km) long and has 10 stops. Since 2022, it has been run by Metro Transit during the summer and fall.
Contents
History of St. Louis Streetcars
Early Ways to Get Around
By the 1830s, St. Louis had grown quite a bit. It was too big for everyone to walk everywhere easily. In 1843, a smart businessman named Erastus Wells started a service with horse-drawn carriages called omnibuses. These were like early buses.
Other companies soon started their own horse-drawn omnibus services. But by 1850, most of them had joined with Wells's company. This new company had 90 carriages and many routes. These early omnibus lines helped plan where the first streetcar lines would go.
First Streetcar Lines
In 1855, some investors wanted to build a horse-drawn street railway. They got ideas from cities like New York and Philadelphia. The first streetcar line in St. Louis started running on July 4, 1859. It went along Olive Street.
At first, there were problems getting good tracks. This caused the cars to go off the rails sometimes. Four lines were finished before the American Civil War began. After the war, more lines opened, connecting the city center to areas further west. In 1874, a new line connected St. Louis to East St. Louis, Illinois, after the Eads Bridge opened.
Streetcar Companies Join Up
In the 1890s, many U.S. cities saw their streetcar companies combining. St. Louis was one of them. In 1898, a new city law, the Central Traction Bill, allowed one big company to use other companies' tracks and buy them out. This led to the creation of St. Louis United Railways. This company quickly bought most of the streetcar lines in St. Louis.
This big change caused a strike among streetcar workers in 1900. It lasted for many months. The companies were accused of hiring workers who were not part of a union.
The years after the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair were a great time for streetcars. More and more people rode them. In 1905, a large company called North American Company bought United Railways. By 1906, United owned almost all the streetcar lines in the city.
As more people started driving cars, fewer people rode streetcars. United Railways began to lose money. The company faced financial trouble and went bankrupt in 1919. After a lot of complicated work, the company was finally reorganized in 1927. It was renamed the St. Louis Public Service Company.
Streetcars Fade Away
In the 1920s, motor buses started to become popular. Buses could drive on any public street, and their owners only paid vehicle and gas taxes. Streetcar companies, however, had fixed routes on tracks and had to pay extra taxes for the tracks they built. This made buses cheaper to run.
The building of Highway I-70 through downtown St. Louis also caused many streetcar lines to close. The very last streetcar route in St. Louis was the 15 Hodiamont line. It stopped running on May 21, 1966.
List of Streetcar Companies
Here are some of the companies that ran streetcars in the St. Louis area:
- Baden and St. Louis Railroad
- Benton and Bellefontaine Railroad
- Citizens Railway
- Cass Avenue and Fairgrounds Railroad
- Forest Park and Clayton Railroad
- Lindell Railroad
- Midland Street Railway
- Missouri Railroad
- Peoples Railway Company
- St. Louis and Kirkwood Railway
- St. Louis and Suburban Railway
- St. Louis Railroad
- St. Louis, St. Charles and Western Railway
- St. Louis Public Service Company
- Southern Electric Railway
- Tower Grove and Lafayette Railway Company
- Union Railroad
- Union Depot Railroad
- Belleville Electric Railway Company
- East St. Louis and Suburban Railway Company
- East St. Louis Railway Company
- Illinois Traction Company
- Alton, Jacksonville and Peoria Railway Company
- East St. Louis, Columbia and Waterloo Railway Company
Streetcar Models (Fleets)
From 1927 to 1951, the St. Louis Public Service Company used Peter Witt streetcars. These were built by United at its own shops.
In the 1940s, the company bought special streetcars called PCC (Presidents Conference Committee) cars. These were made by the St. Louis Car Company. Some of these PCC cars were later sold to the San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1957. They were used there until 1982.
Streetcar Routes
The St. Louis Public Service Co. released a numbering system for its streetcar routes on June 28, 1929.
#1 Kirkwood-Ferguson Line
The #1 Kirkwood line went south from Brentwood towards Kirkwood. It crossed Deere Creek and followed Kirkham Road. Going north, it went through Richmond Heights and connected with the #14 University line in Clayton. It then went north through Clayton and connected to the #16 City Line in Ferguson.
This line was built by the St. Louis and Kirkwood Railroad. It helped connect Clayton to Kirkwood and other areas. People could travel as far north as Ferguson using connections.
In 1947, the Public Service Company asked to replace streetcars with buses on this line. The Kirkwood streetcar line stopped running on August 2, 1950.
Modern Heritage Line
In 2018, a new heritage trolley line opened. It connects the old trolley loop area in University City with the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. This line is called the Loop Trolley.
The Loop Trolley stopped running in 2019 because not enough people rode it. However, it reopened in 2022 after the government said it might want back the money used to build it. Now, Metro Transit operates it during the summer and fall.
The Loop Trolley gets its name from the Delmar Loop. This area was named after a loop of track on the old 10 Delmar Streetcar line, which stopped running in 1964.
Two other ideas to bring back streetcars in St. Louis did not happen. One was for an 8-mile (13 km) route in St. Charles, Missouri. The other was for a 7-mile (11 km) system to connect Downtown St. Louis with other central neighborhoods.
