freight and express and the coming of the motor truck. and in the near future in fact on thursday, i want to talk about trolley or interurban freight. to begin, let's keep in mind that the american inner city road system was awful. we did talk about that turnpike movement at the very end of the 18th century that continued into the early 20th century. we had the national road that was financed by the federal government. in the 1840s and '50s. also, too, there were various local improvements, for example the plank roads, stand out as a good illustration. but it wouldn't be until the 1890s when there was this bicycle craze. the safety bicycle is introduced

in the latter part of the 1880s. and communities were being pressured to have better roads. perhaps only going out into the suburbs. and we have places like cleveland and philadelphia that are installing brick roads. so there is a movement for a all-weather road system, or at least in a limited sense, prior to the coming of the automobile, which really is about 1900, so 1905. most american roads at the beginning of the 20th century, were mud holes during the wet season, and extremely dusty during the dry season. it was estimated that only about 5% of america's 2.2 million

miles of roads were actually all-weather. in other words they were covered with broken stone, some type of gravel, even sand. or in florida, with seashells. so to make a long story short, the road system was abysmal. and one good example comes from iowa. as of 1905, only 2% of the state's network of more than 100,000 miles of roads were improved. or all-weather, or semi all-weather. and here's a comment that was made at this time by a hawkeye state newspaper editor. this week a farmer walked four miles to town with a basket of produce. this week a farmer's wife came to town with her butter. and most everyone in town heard of it because it was the only country butter received here the

past week. and the explanation quite simple -- quote, the bad roads have well near cut the country from the town and the town from the country. so this community, which is red oak, iowa, a county seat town in the southwestern part of the state, was a kind of island community. if the roads were passable, yes, you would have delicious country butter or fresh poultry or eggs or some other commodity from rural-lying areas. so with that in mind, i think it's quite obvious that we needed a better mousetrap. yes, during this time period which i call the twilight era of american steam railroads, there were efforts to add additional miles of line.

>> needless tocy there were areas that simply needed something more than a branch line or a short line, passenger and freight train. so considering the condition of the roads, this is one reason why we have this new perhaps replacement technology. so you may ask, what is an interurban? now i know that you all took baby latin in high school. so interurban, between cities. it's the kind of latin that i actually remember from the early 1960s. perhaps it's time for me to just give you some visual images of and interurban.

this is a brochure, as you can tell, 1907, that was sold to travelers in the greater new england area. and this is going to be the heartland of what we call rural trolleys. and rule trolleys are simply streetcar companies that have extended their lines out into the suburbs, nearby villages. or perhaps to an amusement park or a cemetery, whatever. this is the kind of early interurban car that was so y ubiquitou ubiquitous. >> you have the sweet summer breezes and it is a way

certainly to see the landscape. so this is the first type of interurban car. it has an overhead pole that connects the traction motors with the power source. and there would be literally hundreds of miles of these rule trolleys constructed, mostly in new england, but also scattered throughout the country. this is a view taken in april of 1925, when supposedly the good roads movement was moving at a rapid pace. here we have -- a car that resembles a rural trolley on the kiwanee and galva, illinois railway.

here's a sense of a typical country road. as they said in the 19th century and apparently into the 20th century, choose your rut and stay with it i think we would all agree that taking this interurban car because it did connect to cities that were roughly a dozen miles apart. what we are seeing then, we start out small. perhaps not all that different from an animal car, a street car before the age of electricity. but it is electrified, it does have the overhead, copper wire and it is in some ways modern. but here is the quintessential interurban car. one that dates from about 1907. it's on an iowa interurban, the

clinton and muskatine railway we have the motorman. he certainly is well dressed and we have the various passengers gazing out the window. and the conductor. who is there guarding the rear. what we have is really a large railroad car, if you will. that simply is self-propelled. not all that different from some of those gas-electric cars that were being introduced about the same time and then later we have what were called rail-diesel cars, that were more modern and more sophisticated. so phaneuf been to new orleans and rode on the st. charles streetcar line or even in charlotte, with its recent light rail system, you can see a

similarities. the power today might come from a third rail, but most of the railroads that were electrified, these interurbans, took their juice from the overhead. so yes, here we have a nicely ballasted track, could you go along the western shores, if you want to call them the shores of the mississippi river. between clinton, davenport and muskatine. >> here is another typical interurban car, it comes from southern iowa. from the cincinnati-georgetown-portsmouth railway. here's a wonderful example where the promoters were hoping to get to portsmouth, but they didn't

get much further than georgetown, which is immediately east of the queen city, cincinnati. incidentally, this railroad was originally built as a narrow-gauge steam railroad. but would then be standardized and converted to electricity. and there were some examples of that. so here is a somewhat smaller car, dating also from about 1910 or thereabouts. and here we have one more interurban car. and note that we are operating in multiple sections. this is on the piedmont and northern railway. it was taken not too far outside of greenville. and this electric interurban built by the duke power interests, actually the duke cigarette interests, tobacco

interests, was one of the most profitable of all interurban railroads. largely because it developed a substantial car load freight business. so cars could be interchanged with the southern railway and the georgia and florida railroad, so on and so forth in is a special excursion, if you're a rail fan would you notice this immediately, a white flag signifying an extra train. it's not a scheduled train. apparently we have school children on an outing. the piedmont and northern is somewhat different than other interurbans. as i said it made money. many of them did not. but we're in a state where jim crow laws are being enforced. so there would be a special section for african-americans, a colored section as it was called. the railroad actually would

operate various colored-only excursions, toc excursions. often to baseball games that were held in anderson or perhaps greenville or even greenwood. this railroad, too, was built in sections. it was never connected. there was no a north carolina division. from charlotte to gastonia. and then as i said, we have this south carolina operation from spartanburg to greenville. with a branch into anderson. and then down to greenwood. so here we have again, somewhat later, this is a train, about the time of the first world war. this railroad incidentally wasn't built until 1912, to 1913. really, at the end of the construction period. and it would last for many years. we'll talk later about the

twilight of the trolley. so a good working definition of an interurban is probably appropriate at this time. early in the century a new york investment banker came up with what i consider to be the best definition. he said that a bona fide interurban was one that was more than 15 miles in length. in other words, distinguishing it from a rural trolley. which has at least two-thirds of its track outside the municipal limits. and operates cars at a maximum speed of not less than 20 miles per hour. so in other words, we are talking about an interurban, that is longer than 15 miles.

two-thirds of its track is outside of corporate limits. and it's got to be able to operate at 20 miles per hour or faster. now the federal government, bless its heart, never could come up with a real definition for a while the department of commerce and labor that was before the two departments would be separated early in the century, suggested that any electric line that operated between two municipalities was an interurban. but then there was a realization that we have essentially suburban street car lines and that didn't really fit so what the government did, just love this, the government said, look, when we send out this questionnaire about whether you're a trolley company or an

interurban, it's up to you to decide. we'll make you the ultimate judge of what you happen to be. for most of the history of the interurbans, it was up to an individual corporate entity. now let me explain the technology. and even though i wrote a book on railroad technology, i'm not that skilled in explaining interurban technology. as you saw on those images, that the earliest interurban cars really were just somewhat larger animal cars or perhaps small city streetcars. most of them were relatively small. and it would be operated by the motorman. would call on a steam railroad, the engineer. and you would likely have a conductor. so we're talking about a two-person crew.

the power comes almost always from the overhead line. some interurbans experimented with third-rail. but there's always the danger, there was a problem in the state of washington, where livestock or at least small livestock, i guess chickens are livestock, sort of, although you can't herd chickens. and children were shocked and in the case of animals, actually killed, more likely dogs than anything else. and so there was a lot of concern about third rail and perhaps you've been in new york city, and the subway and you don't want to touch the third rail. it's not a good idea. unless you're planning suicide. originally and for much of the history of interurbans, we find the use of direct current, dc.

general electric is the innovator here and a numb of these interurbans, like the ones that i showed you, with the exception of the piedmont and northern, used 600 to 1200-volt dc. then the westinghouse electric and manufacturing company, the competitor to general electric, early in the 20th century introduced alternating current, ac. and this might be 6,600 volts, 25-cycle power. and westinghouse engineers argued, they're trying to sell this to various interurban promotors, that you didn't have line drop like you did with dc current. when you used dc, you had to use a number of substations that added more juice to the current.

also, westinghouse suggested that less copper wire was needed or at least less quality copper wire was required. but there were limitations. and the limitations involved the fact that ac operated interurban cars had to be heavier, there were issues with the motors. they had to be perhaps more durable. also you had to use more expensive copper wire. and so the bottom line was -- that maintenance costs generally were higher with ac. and there was another issue. cars using ac could not accelerate as fast as those that used dc so there is this conflict. and there were municipalities that said, we don't want this

high-voltage ac lines in our street so they would have to then convert to dc, when they had street runnings through a municipality and these interurbans tended to go into the heart of communities. so if we look at the history of interurbans and we're interested in electricity, we would say that a majority perhaps, 70 to 75% used direct current. well when we look at the beginnings of electric powered transportation, we see that there were these tinkerers who realized that electricity was a kind of magical power. and there were a variety of efforts to put it to use on track, vehicles using flanged

wheels. there's no single inventor. just as there's no single inventor of the automobile. certainly one individual who gets high praise is frank julian sprague. sprague was a graduate of the united states naval academy and after he completed his mandatory tour of duty. he wept to work for thomas edison. mr. light bulb. and while working with edison, he became fascinated with the possible application of electricity to transportation. he then left in the early 1880s, the edison company, and created his own manufacturing concern that focused on building what we would call electric trolleys. there were some dead ends, but in 1887, and 1888, sprague was

successful in honoring a contract that he signed with private investors in richmond, virginia, to electrify the richmond union passenger railway. what he did was to electrify the existing dozen or so miles of animal car line in that virginia capital. and he built or had his company construct 40 motorized cars. and built a power station. in other words all the bells and whistles that we would need for an electric powered trolley system. what sprague did and his great contribution was to figure out how to mount the electric motor under the car. before it was a rigid mounting

and streets were rough and those people that had used that approach discovered that the motors failed or there were constant adjustments necessary. so sprague has a system of supporting springs that are used for the traction motors. so the jarring that occurs as a result of rough streets no more. also he worked on motor components, making them more useful using carbon brushes for example. so in other words, sprague didn't invent the electric streetcar, which is going to morph into the electric interurban. but he solved some of the technical problems. so bless frank sprague.

and sprague did well financially. some inventors don't do that well. but sprague was very cautious about patents and he had friends with legal connections. perhaps he picked this up from thomas edison who was also a stickler for patent protection. so almost immediately, and i pointed this out earlier, we find that city streetcars that are electrified become all the rage so by 1890, a high percentage of communities had converted from animal car to trolley. from steam dummy operations to trolley. from cable car to trolley. so by 1900, you're hard-pressed to find an animal car line left in the united states. and in anderson, for example,

the electric city, right? you think of that when you enter the corporate limits, correct? it had one of the early electric street car systems in the certainly in the state. now, we always have problems as historians to say that something was the first. well, i would argue that the prototype for the interurban can be found in ohio. and ohio was just a great place to build interurbans, because you had the population density. it was a prosperous state, manufacturing as well as agricultural. and communities were not that far apart. so you had villages, you had towns, and you had cities. so the prototype was an electric interurban that was built

between newark, locals pronounce it "nerk," ohio, if you're not from around there, you pronounce it newark, to granville, ohio. anybody ever been to granville, ohio? it was an at least regionally famous university, dennison university, a baptist institution, once upon a time. so here we have the county seat town of newark, and this college community which is seven miles away. and the company did not build a private right-of-way. it simply used the side of a country road. but it is incredibly profitable. and certainly the students at dennison, remember, baptist, were delighted to go to newark,

because it had the reputation for saloons and brothels. it was kind of a rough town, a railroad town, coal mining center. free at last, free at least. the historian at dennison university had pointed out that the administration was not happy. and so there were representatives of the school that went down to the trolley station, the interurban station, to see what these students were like physically, when the last car ran at 11:00 p.m. so we're not talking dwi, but it's close to where some of the students would be campused as well as expelled. this is really a rural county, out into the hinterlands.

it does connect to the cities and at least two-thirds of its mileage was outside of corporate limit. but certainly one of the first true interurbans, and i would argue the first major interurban, also appeared in ohio. it was called the alphabet route, the a, b, and c railroad, for akron, bedford, and cleveland railway, and connected the municipalities in its corporate name. it opened a relatively high speed, partially double tracked line in 1895. that was a bad year, during the depths of that nasty depression of 1893 to 1897. a local syndicate paid for it. and it was a real money maker. in other words, it went from somewhere, akron, which was

growing, a diverse manufacturing center, this was before the rubber industry took control, and cleveland, which was not the mistake on the lake. it was a place where a lot of smart money was being invested, and a lot of smart people were anxious to live and to stay put. and now the craze is on. so we're going to start to see interurban madness. and let me just add parenthetically that when we looked at those canals, folks, the most prosperous ones were built in the best areas, like the new york erie canal from roughly albany out to buffalo. but when we were building a canal between the ohio river and lisbon, ohio, that was not necessarily the best location to have a profitable ditch operation. so it was realized certainly by

1905 or so that maybe in some localities the best routes have already been selected and interurbans built, and maybe we shouldn't build any more in that immediate vicinity. now the big question. why were interurbans popular? you have a good inkling as a result of looking at those god awful roads, where you have that vicious and viscous mud gumbo, yuck. first of all, interurbans are clean. as one company said, no cinders, no dust, no dirt, no smoke. and when you compare that to the typical steam operated passenger train, you look like you had been down in a coal mine, perhaps, or perhaps too your

hat, whether you're a female or male, had pockmarks in it. there were occasions when sparks actually set coaches on fire. not good. now, admittedly, there were a few railroads, the so-called anthracite roads, that burned this hard coal as opposed to this high ash, high sulfur local coal that we would find let's say in illinois. and so there was a limited amount of smoke. so railroads like the delaware lackawanna western, lehigh valley, the erie and several other carriers, used anthracite. but it was expensive. although in the case of lackawanna, the company owned a number of anthracite mines.

so we have a kind of vertical integration, if you will. well, interurbans like to point out that they were clean. i think if you had your good sunday clothes on, you appreciate that. now, the lackawanna in the early part of the century had an advertising campaign that was in some ways remarkably successful. they selected a young woman, mythical woman, a kind of gibson girl type, sexy, actually, for the time. her name was phoebe snow. and there were a number of jingles that the company used in advertisements, newspapers, magazines, and public timetables. and the most common one, and i quote, says, phoebe snow about to go upon a trip to buffalo. my gown stays white from morn to night upon the road of anthracite. and miss snow, ms. snow to be

politically correct, had a white hat and a white shirtwaist, white skirt, and usually had a white parasol. so she was white. unlike some people in the room that have their school colors all black, we have all orange, right? well, white. an a creative employee for the illinois traction system, sometimes called mckinley lines, thought that phoebe snow would really enjoy riding on one of that interurban's cars. and the only traction system, which later becomes the illinois terminal company, a major freight road, was long, about 400 miles, and connected such places as springfield, decatur, peoria, with st. louis.

in fact the company built its own bridge over the mississippi river. it was a money maker, and was in some ways considered to be one of the nation's finest interurban. that's the illinois traction system. here is the poem that we have. after a ride of a day and night over the road of anthracite, phoebe snow and her five sisters rubbed and scrubbed until they had blisters. steam roads are out of date, said they. we'll have to travel some other way. tomorrow to springfield we will go, dressed all in white from head to toe. so they boarded a car on the illinois traction system. when phoebe said, i must confess, i've heard of this road, it's service fine, it's hard to beat an electric line. the car was clean, the woodwork bright. the tipless porter treated them

right. no dust, no dirt, all of which shows there wasn't a speck on the sisters' clothes. they arrived in springfield white and clean, not feeling tired, dirty and mean. said phoebe snow, retiring that night, this beats the road of anthracite. also, in urban cars were relatively quiet. a steam locomotive makes a lot of sound, like your stomach after a meal. there's this clanking whatever. but in an interurban car, you just have the hum of the motor and every so often the noise that comes from the air pumps. so it's quiet. so i think we are thinking, interurbans, good news, they're clean. but even more important than

that, from the public perspective, was the fact that they were convenient. interurban companies commonly operated on hourly schedules, sometimes every 30 minutes during the day and into the evening. perhaps the first car would leave at 5:00 a.m., the last car, let's say 11:00 p.m. or midnight. on steam railroads, certain companies were very proud of their double daily service, maybe not even on sunday, but at least during the weekend -- or the weekdays, and on saturday. so you've got two chances to go east, two chances to go west or whatever direction. and on these main lines like the

new york central, the pennsylvania, the illinois central, whatever, you might only have six or seven trains. now, admittedly, these weren't all locals. some of them were through trains or express trains like the 20th century limited or the broadway limited on the pensee. if you were at a smaller station, you might only have three or four trains from which to choose. but just think about this, it's like a c.a.t. bus, there's always one when you want it, correct? so these cars were operating frequently, and they would stop virtually anywhere. maybe not everywhere, but out in the rural areas. at shelters that were built at trackside or public road crossings. and it was easy to get on these cars. you would use a hand signal during the day, or a lantern, a

lighted match, or even burning newspapers at night. and the motorman would stop and pick you up. here is what the lake shore electric told readers of its public timetables in 1911. and the lake shore electric was one of these well-positioned interurban lines that connected cleveland with toledo, a distance of about 100-plus miles. passengers wishing to stop should signal the motorman with arm extended horizontally across the track by day, i guess i give you the wrong signal, and a light swung across the track by night, at a distance of not less than 1500 feet from approaching cars. i'm not sure i know what 1500 feet is, but whatever. the motorman will answer with two short blasts of the whistle, signifying that he sees and understands you.

so there's convenience. we'll see this next time when we look at the interurban era. this is particularly popular with farmers. so in other words, a farmer won't have to make arrangements perhaps for some family member to get a part for a piece of machinery, he can just go on the hour, let's say, to a trackside shelter or public road nearby, signal a car going to town, go to the hardware store or the implement company, get the part, and come home. it's wonderful. it's not unlike, as we'll see later, taking that automobile whenever you wish. so convenience is certainly there. and a resident of a northern ohio village, seville, said this about a local interurban. quote, shoppers can take

advantage of cleveland's sales. farmers can expect their produce, milk, eggs, and the like, to arrive at city markets in good conditions. and everyone can enjoy a show, maybe vaudeville and then a silent picture show. another attractive aspect would be for the traveling salesman, the so-called drummers. again, i want to spend more time talking about them on thursday. but interurbans went from the heart of a community to the heart of a community. and when steam railroads were built, oftentimes they were forced to build their station on the outskirts or some distance from center city. if you were a traveling salesperson, you may have to walk to the downtown. and if you had your sample

cases, you would have to make arrangements, maybe you would ride with your sample cases. the urban car would likely stop in front of the hotel. in fact many hotels served as railroad interurban stations. there would be somebody that would offload that sample case. and in these hotels you had sample rooms where you had shows your wares. so one of the steady sources of traffic for interurban companies would be traveling salesmen. also, cheap. you don't have to be a marxist to have an economic interpretation for human behavior. in other words, i think that's why today can buy it, if they can get it online, the $1 ticket for megabus, if they're lucky, or maybe they go to spirit

airlines, where everything is extra except using the restroom, although transportation is at a low fare, right? have you ridden on spirit? you have not gotten the spirit? well, it's a memorable way to travel, just like mega bus. in fact we'll talk about buses later, although recently in "the new york times"' travel section, they talked about some poor student on a megabus and the bus caught fire outside of milwaukee and the student lost his laptop, his books, his life. well, property life, whatever. so interurbans tended to charge let's say two cents a mile, where the steam railroad competitors, if there are competitors, would charge maybe three to five cents a file. and if you're salesman, for

example, you could buy these coupon books so the cost of fares might be a penny, a penny and a half per mile. needless to say, the cost of tickets almost always less. and in a few cases where an interurban charged more than a competing steam railroad, we find that traveling salesmen preferred it because they actually saved money and time by going into the heart of a town or city. so they were willing to pay perhaps a small premium. also, and you may never think of this, and it's not all that important, but i think it's kind of interesting, is that interurban cars that we saw are really benign. and by that i mean, what a traveler said in 1903, quote, there are a good many elderly

men and women who are still rather afraid of the locomotive compared with an engine and train of coaches. an interurban car is rather an innocent-looking affair. so there, you don't have to be scared. and then we have real estate appreciation. and i would argue, if we wanted to construct a statue to the most representative american, maybe it would be a politician, maybe it would be a military leader, i think it would be a real estate promoter, seller, whatever. we've been speculating on real estate since we first stumbled off ships in the 1600s. well, you have an electric line that's clean, that's convenient, that's cheap for passage, right?

and wouldn't you want to live alongside or nearby? and this is especially true for agricultural property. here is what an ohio businessman said. quote, real estate along electric lines in northern ohio has nearly doubled in value since interurbans were built. and the first question a prospective buyer of a farm asks, how far is it from an electric line? also, speaking of money, the owners, the promoters of these interurbans saw this as an opportunity to increase their wealth. and investors believed that these were good investments for them, perhaps to protect those assets of widows and orphans. that in time would not be the case.

so there is this opportunity to make money, whether you're actually the owners or you're buying the stock and the bonds. it's also a good job creator. we know that tens of thousands of americans would be employed by interurbans, not only in operations, but in their offices, in their sales departments, so on and so forth. also there would be suppliers. we had this supply industry. now, often these suppliers are producing parts for city trollies. but you found different types of headlights that are needed, for instance, on interurban cars. and then there is this whole story of urban growth, that communities are wanting to have greater control over their hinterlands. you can expect people from villages, farmers of course, coming into town, probably on

saturday, and spending money. also, if your community, and we probably talking about small communities, villages, had been missed by a steam railroad, this is the second chance, just as the building of u.s. highways and interstates would be in some ways a third chance for communities. we're talking a variety of attractive features. that explains interurban madness. when were they built, and how many miles? we have several boom periods. the first is roughly from the end of the 1890s depression. the technology is being perfected, we have better power supplies, for instance. from 1899 to 1903, there are 5,000 miles of electric

interurbans that will be constructed and open. then we have this nasty albeit short recession of 1903 to 1904. and it won't be until 1905 that there is another boom. and that goes into 1907, at the time of a more severe wall street disruption. the bankers panic of 1907. and there's another 4,000 route miles constructed. and we found in this period from maybe 1908, 1909, to the first world war, really, additional mileage. so the peak comes in 1916, with almost 16,000 route miles. now, that's overshadowed by steam road mileage which is in excess of a quarter million

miles. it's interesting, 1916, as you know, historians love dates, that's the peak for interurban mileage. it's the peak for steam railroad mileage, and that's when congress and the president make it possible for the first modern aid to highway building financing program. long sentence. so in other words, 1916 is kind of a watershed year, kind of a tipping point, and in some ways it's going to be downhill for interurbans especially and also for steam railroads. now, the average length to economists, one from the university of illinois and one from the university of california los angeles, figured out that it's about 45 miles standard length. so we're not talking long interurbans.

in some states they averaged greater length. texas, for example, about 70 miles. you know, everything's bigger in texas, as we know. and texas is going to be a state that has the second largest interurban network west of the mississippi. california, more mileage. and iowa is a close third. so just keep in mind, interurbans, unlike steam railroads, are not massive in length. yeah, there are some long ones like the illinois traction system, and i might note too that piedmont northern had 127 route miles. but we do have a numerous paper interurban story. and this in some ways knocks home the point of this kind of

madness, this intensity, this excitement, interurbans are the wave of the future. ohio is the heartland. no state had more mileage than ohio. it's close to 3,000 miles. indiana is the next state in terms of greatest mileage, about 2,000 miles. now, if you take the county seat town of tiffen, which is located in north central ohio, there were 11 different interurban projects projected to go to or through tiffen. but only one, the tiffen fostoria and eastern, was ever completed. that's not usual. we had these paper railroads, some of them were actually incorporated, and in some cases

too there would be some grading, some actual construction. there were a lot of unbuilt projects in texas, in the lonestar state. back in the early 1980s, when i perhaps had too much time on my hands, i did an article on unbuilt railroads in the lonestar state. and after a great deal of guessing and a lot of work, i concluded there were about 22,000 miles of interurbans projected in texas. but only about 500 built. and most of the 500 were centered in the greater dallas-ft. worth area, although there was an important high speed railroad constructed between houston and galveston.

just think of it, come up with 500 miles, and yet you project more than 20,000 miles. so there were a lot of paper interurbans. now, let's deal with the lunatic fringe. there are some examples of grandiose projects, paper interurbans. although the one that i'm selecting this morning, the one that's being highlighted, actually did turn a wheel, although not for many miles. and let's look at the chicago/new york eleric airline. i know you're fascinated with the prospects of learning the daylights of this extreme example of interurban madness. it's not to say there weren't a number of grandiose schemes. in 1895, at the time that that

alphabet road, the akron, bedford, and cleveland was opening, there was a serious proposal, i guess it was serious, to build a high speed electric line between chicago and st. louis. but it went nowhere, probably because the technology was still iffy, although admittedly that a, b, and c route did operate, and operated successfully. so at the dawn, at the very dawn of the interurban era, there were these promoters with hunches, thinking let's have a high speed railroad that will be twice as fast as the chicago and alton, which is the major steam road connector between chicago and st. louis. about the time the chicago/new york electric airline was

proposed, it's 1906, 1907, there was an effort to build a long distance interurban known as the minneapolis, kansas city, and gulf, between minneapolis, kansas city, down through dallas, to galveston, on the gulf of mexico. so that's long. so let's look at the chicago/new york electric airline. there is a sparkplug. and the sparkplug, the creator, is a man by the name of alexander miller. just think, we're the only people in the world now even remotely considering alexander miller. this is part of his 15 minutes of modest fame.

so who was alexander miller? alexander miller was a farm boy from ohio who fell in love with railroads. seems like a sensible thing to do. and he got a job as a brakeman for his hometown railroad. and in time he learns that cryptic morse code and becomes a telegrapher for the burlington railroad. he becomes a dispatcher for the burlington. so he's minor railroad official. he also decides his future is not with the burlington. and with some friends, partners, he organizes a bank. at this time it's not that hard to create a bank. and he will be the president of aurora savings and loan.

he also is an inventor at heart. and he comes up with an electric signaling system and will be the founder and president of the miller electric signal company. well, he goes out on the road. i guess the bank can operate on its own. and what he does is to spend considerable time in new york city trying to interest investors and trying to interest corporate executives in the big apple to buy his system. he doesn't have a lot of success, although back home, the chicago and eastern illinois railroad does buy his signaling for the protection of about 50 miles of its main line. the point is that miller is commuting between new york and chicago, maybe not commuting, but he makes frequent trips. and one day i guess he's just bored.

he borders a new york central passenger train in the city and realizes that the first 150 miles or so, essentially in the wrong direction, he's going north to albany along the hudson river. you've seen "north by northwest," it's beautiful scenery. but when he's in albany, he's actually further from the windy city than when he left gotham. got it? then the new york central heads west along the old erie canal to buffalo and then through cleveland and eventually to chicago. so i guess it doesn't take a genius to think, maybe there's going to be a shorter route or a better route. and the big competitor to pennsylvania goes from new york down to philadelphia, and then

it has to go over the spine of the appalachians, and it slows you down. by the time it gets to ohio, it has more or less a straight shot to chicago. so the time of the fastest trains in 1903, 1904, 1905, is about 18 to 19 hours between those two destinations. so light bulbs are going on. i think electricity is an apt analogy here. miller's idea is to build a high speed electric railroad between these two cities. and it's going to be as the crow flies. it's going to be a direct route. it's not going to have much in the way of grades. all grades are going to be less than a half of one percent, which is essentially level. now, you've got to deal with the appalachians.

yes, building across indiana and ohio, at least most of ohio, is relatively flat. that will make it possible to have these low grades. but when you get beyond the ohio river, you've got some challenges. but miller and his associates are convinced that what they can do is to have these deep cuts, huge fills, numerous steel trestles like you would find in switzerland, and keep the grade at 1% or less. now, it's a straight line. but you're going to miss places like toledo and cleveland and pittsburgh, potentially sources of a lot of passenger revenue. so what does miller suggest? you're going to have these feeder or shuttle trains operating let's say between cleveland and where it slices through the buckeye state. doesn't this sound like a great

idea? and we're going to have a powerful locomotive, electric of course. and the cars are not going to look like regular railroad cars. this is a little fuzzy, but here is -- well, you had an instant of -- oh, it's college back. it's thinking. electricity is not what it's -- well, whatever. look at this locomotive. it's what we call a steeple jack locomotive. it's called the electric loco. miller is optimistic, we're going to have this locomotive.

notice we'll have this conventional steam rolling stock, but it's going fast, and i mean fast. this is really exciting. here's what a writer for the "chicago sunday tribune" in 1906. i think he was essentially rewriting promotional copy from miller's road. chicago to new york in ten hours, fare $10. new direct line startles the transportation world. route 160 miles shorter than the shortest. time, ten hours, quicker than the quickest. fares $10, cheaper than the cheapest. and this bluster continued, that this fancy, yet to be invented locomotive would pull trains for, quote, high passenger speed and for mail and express service.

now, the electric airline will turn its first shovel of dirt in the summer of 1906, in northwestern indiana. and there's a great deal of optimism. what miller and his associates plan to do is to use a different kind of interurban financing. most interurbans were like steam railroads in that that issued debt, bonds, as well as stock equity. but this railroad was going to be owned totally by stockholders. no bonds. so if we don't have any interest payments to deal with, and the economy goes to hell in a hand basket, we're not going to go into bankruptcy. also miller and his associates, sort of like bernie sanders, didn't trust wall street.

and it was thought that those evil capitalists won't be manipulating our incredibly in-the-future profitable railroad. it's going to be the people's railroad. and they will be the investors, they will call the shots. in fact investors were given priority when the railroad opened for jobs. so you had some shares in the airline, wow, you're going to get one of those great jobs. a typical promotional statement was this: don't sit around and growl at standard oil company when the airline with no bondholders earns 15% on your money. the stock for which you paid $25 a share will be worth $300.

so if you have extra money, let's see it, and i can guarantee a wonderful return. and you're a smart investor. and what is fascinating, at least from my perspective, is that there were investor clubs that were organized. first in illinois, and then throughout the midwest and chicago was a center, as well as new york and even los angeles and san francisco. so there is this grassroots support for the airline. and within a relatively short period of time, about spring 1907, there were more than $2 million that had been raised

that were in a chicago bank. fortunately one that didn't fail during the panic of 1907. so there's a lot of money. and the idea that the backers had was to build in sections. so we would build 100 miles at a time, and we would get the railroad started, and then these fabulous profits would roll in, and then we would build the next hundred miles, and there would be more investors who were interested, whatever. so gosh, it looks like a wonderful business proposition. kind of like a perpetual motion machine, if you will. in other words, we're going to build this in sections, and eventually we'll get to new york city. well, some of the railroad would be built. so it's more than just a paper or hot air good-idea project.

so in northern western indiana, about 20 miles would be completed. it's going to be double track. at first they thought, well, we'll just use a single track. it was going to have a third rail operation. there was a new third rail scheme that was being introduced. but the first construction actually used that conventional trolley overhead with poles and brackets. and several cars were purchased. i love it, one car said new york at one end, chicago at the other, fancy cars. what the company did after it completed 20 miles would be to invite potential or actual investors to come and ride on it. and people were just anxious to buy more stock or buy stock for the first time. then there's the problem of coffee creek. the idea was to keep these grades to a minimum if at all. and at coffee creek, we find sort of the downfall of this project.

it's a minor stream outside of a new city called gary, which is the home of a u.s. steel plant, a model city, if you will. and the railroad uses this money in the bank to buy a bunch of construction equipment. and here we have a colossal field that's 180 feet wide at the base and two miles long to go over this dinky creek. well, they put in the wooden structures that are needed for the fill, dirt, gravel to be dumped. it's well-done. well, this does it in. they're now experiencing the bank panic of 1907. and yes, they don't have any bonded debt, but stockholders don't appear. and the company more or less decides that it will become a conventional interurban.

so it builds a branch line that will go into gary and eventually make connections with some electric trollies, small interurbans that go into chicago or at least connect with the chicago commuter system. so they got lucky because of gary. and gary was thought to be the great metropolis of the midwest. but the poor old airline, almost all of it will be abandoned in 1917. so not a long history, needless to say. although that feeder line that was built will be part of the gary street railways until the late 1930s. several historians have looked at the airline, although i don't think they've all done the greatest research. and the argument is, this is a fraud. but it's not a fraud.

miller was sincere. his investor friends were sincere. they perhaps just had an idea that was beyond anybody's reach at that time, at least in terms of a grass root financial arrangement. yes, if you had big money coming from, let's say, the rockefellers or someone else, yeah, this might have been happened. in fact about the same time, there was a proposal to build a high speed freight line between philadelphia and chicago. and it actually was financed by some major capitalists, although it was no more really than a paper proposition. so here we have the failure of the airline. but i think it's just a wonderful illustration of this interurban madness.

when you look at any technology, folks, you can see that there is that excitement at times. we think about the dot-com bust in the 1990s. not every company turned out to be microsoft or ebay or amazon. there were a lot of companies that folded relatively quickly, although there were investors who were convinced that, you know, this is the wave of the future. so the interurban industry, as we will see in the next two presentations, certainly in the latter one, was a kind of dot-com proposition. and keep this in mind. make a mental notation. there has not been any other industry in the history of the united states that grew so rapidly and collapsed almost so completely as electric interurbans. and again, if we dealt with counterfactual history, we could say that maybe if the automobile

had been invented earlier and we had good roads, we wouldn't even have the interurban era. or the opposite, that the automobile hadn't been invented until the 1930s, let's say, or the 1940s, we would have had many more than 15 to 16,000 route miles of electric interurbans. any questions? don't go out and buy interurban stock. this is a useful pointer that knowledge of the past can provide. so time is up. and if there are no questions, you can pick up your tests sometimes after 12:15. some of you will be happy. thank you for good listeners. and i will see you on thursday. this week during american history tv prime time, we feature our lectures in history series, taking you into college classrooms across the country. each night we debut a new lecture.

tonight, a look at how the u.s. transportation system developed. we begin at 8:00 eastern with the development of park ways and freeways from an iowa university state lecture. at 10:30 eastern, the development of the electric rail system, taken from a clemson university lecture. american history tv. prime time tonight. this labor day weekend, american history tv on c-span3 has three days of featured programming. saturday night at 8:00 eastern, bakersfield college has a lecture. on personal family history about the national farm workers association. >> chavez was absolutely blowing this up. the movement of farm workers, the people at the bottom of the society were suddenly becoming

engaged in fighting for their rights, wages, working conditions, but also mobilizing for politicians, right? we'll talk about maybe about this later. i know some of you mentioned this in oral history, one of the best friends of the chavez family is the kennedy family, right, starting with john and robert and their children. >> sunday evening at 6:00 on "american artifacts," we'll visit george washington university and its director, thomas blanton, for the 50th anniversary of the freedom of information act, signed into law by president johnson. >> john moss picked up this bright young illinois congressman as a co-sponsor, a guy named donald rumsfeld. rumsfeld's statement on the floor of the house in 1966 is a pretty good explanation of why the bill then become a majority bill. rumsfeld said, government's gotten so big, it's involved in so many different pieces of our life and our commercial life, industrial life, personal lives, medicare, social security, so forth, we need the right to get

those records out of agencies to be able to uphold our own standard of living, restraint on government. >> on monday morning, the national park service marking its 100th anniversary. the robert e. lee memorial. we spoke with robert stanton and brandon beis who will oversee a year-long restoration of the mansion and grounds. >> we were incredibly fortunate we were able to tailor our specific needs for all kinds of things for the museum objects for telling the historian interpretation and for the physical fixes and constructions that needed to happen. not just to the buildings but historic grounds and gardens. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org.