Unveiled in June of 1872, these prototype trolleys were made of iron and wood and were drawn along their tracks by horses or mules. Mainly they connected downtown to nearby residential areas. Then in 1889, a small fleet of electric trolleys was put into operation, powered by a maze of overhead wires. A Salt Lake Herald report that year called the system a "modern miracle" of transportation.
By the turn of the 20th century, nearly every area of Salt Lake was linked by electric rail.
In 1906, pioneering railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman bought the Utah Light and Railway Company and for the next 15 years expanded the system into one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the West.
The trolley became an efficient, cheap and popular form of public transportation and had a profound effect on the expansion of the Salt Lake Valley, spurring developments from Sugar House to Murray.
At its heyday, the system had 150 miles of tracks, including lines south to Holladay and north to Centerville. Connecting interurban rail lines ran to Preston, Idaho, and Spanish Fork.
If the streetcars were such a success, it would seem unlikely that the system would be abandoned unless something better came along.
Nevertheless, 60 years ago The Salt Lake Tribune announced the lamentable end of the Salt Lake Trolley. After 75 years of service, the city was completely dismantling its street car system in favor of motorized buses.
How did that happen? Some historians have speculated that a vast conspiracy was at the heart of it. Generally, the story goes like this:
In the 1930s and '40s, as demand for the automobile increased, industry executives used their political sway and financial might to turn communities away from efficient public transportation and towards the use of the personal vehicle.
It is well-documented that by 1949, executives at General Motors had been involved in replacing more than 100 electric transit systems with GM buses in 45 cities including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Tulsa, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. A 1974 report to the Senate titled "American Ground Transport: a Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus & Rail Industries" describes a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. It accused GM of "criminally conspiring with Standard Oil of California, Firestone Tire and others to replace electric transportation with gas or diesel-powered buses - and to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transportation companies throughout the country."
Supposedly GM had founded National City Lines, a conglomerate holding company, to illegally acquire streetcar systems throughout the country with the ultimate intent of demolishing the industry.
In April 1949, the court convicted GM of the charge and fined it $5,000. Eventually the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the earlier ruling, effectively giving GM a green light to proceed with its business ventures.
Historians must consider a variety of explanations for the outcomes of the past and very rarely is there just one cause for any particular reality.
While automobile industry influence seems to have had a profound effect on transportation policy in the United States, an equal case could be made for the ballooning popularity of personal transport or for the effects of a country at war. Nonetheless, while 40,000 streetcars were in operation in the United States in 1936, by 1950 (just 14 years later) the street car had had its final run in most municipalities.
Now, as more and more communities, including Salt Lake City, turn to light and interurban rail systems to cope with swelling populations, as the world copes with the specter of global warming from carbon pollution, it is difficult not to lament the poor choices of the past.
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Roger McDonough is a Salt Lake City writer and amateur historian.
