Although horse-drawn streetcars were common in America's growing industrial cities, these conveyances had limitations. First, the cost to run a streetcar line was relatively expensive. Running a streetcar each day required a team of five horses, adequate feed and water, and a paid blacksmith to maintain horseshoes and other required equipment.
The amount of manure produced by all of a city's horses was also significant, and rail companies were required to recover what was dropped. Such rules weren't always obeyed, however, and the amount of manure on a city's streets became increasingly foul-smelling.
Horses were also prone to fatigue, sickness, and disease; if the horses couldn't work, then the cars didn't run. Not only would streetcar companies lose profits and risk going out of business, but the public would become quite upset after getting used to its newfound mobility. Tragically, the "Great Epizootic" of 1872 killed thousands of horses throughout many streetcar cities in North America.
Horses also behaved unpredictably within industrial cities. The continued mechanization and industrialization of urban life began to make the horse-drawn streetcar a liability. Horses could be scared into frenzy by loud explosions from steam engines or whistles from some of the railroads that passed through the center of a downtown.
In cities with steep grades, horses weren't always able to control a heavy streetcar. Consider the account of one Andrew S. Hallidie, who witnessed a horse-drawn streetcar being pulled ever so slowly up the steep grades of San Francisco. Hallidie saw how hard the horses labored to haul a streetcar full of people, and thought there had to be a better way.
The Cable Car
In 1873, San Francisco saw the first successful use of a streetcar powered by something other than a horse. Instead of a steed, this streetcar (which also ran on rails) was powered by cables that ran underneath the street. A central powerhouse provided the necessary steam power.
The first San Francisco cable car was the invention of Andrew S. Hallidie, a cable and wire rope manufacturer. Hallidie's cable car had a "grip" that would latch onto a continuously moving cable that ran underneath the street between two rails. The cable car ran on these rails, and the car would be pulled along by the cable.
Powered by reliable cables, streetcars were more dependable than horses. This created a much safer means of moving through San Francisco's 23 lines that were created over a 10-year span. A second city, Chicago, then adopted the new technology. This mid-western metropolis was experiencing an incredible amount of growth as immigrants arrived to work in the city's industries.
Ultimately, 27 cities adopted cable-car technology. Hallidie's invention doubled the speed of travel from a horse-drawn 4 mph to 8 mph, yet cable cars were only a short-lived (but necessary) technology for those cities that grew over lands with steep grades. Nevertheless, a cable could handle more weight and was able to operate on a more consistent schedule than a horse.
Editor's Note: Part 4 of this multi-part series will run in two weeks (03/16).
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