A Ghost in the Night
A Ghost in the Night
by Geoff Stough
Since its founding, Montgomery has played an important role in many ways, which continues to this day. As the city grew and prospered, so did city services. Toward the end of the 19th century, several major public improvements were made, one of these being in public transportation.
The city’s first trolley system was pulled by mules on tracks which began at the foot of lower Commerce Street and up Dexter Avenue to the Capitol. Joseph Gaboury, a Canadian, was the owner of the trolley, named the Capital City Street Railway Company. The mules were hard to deal with as they pulled the trolleys from point to point. Gaboury soon employed an electrician from Chicago by the name of Charles Van de Poele to solve the mule issue.
Photo Credit: Times Gone By
Van de Poele was known for being a brilliant electrician and presented an ingenious idea to Gaboury. Within a year of being hired, Van de Poele installed electric motors in each of the trolley cars and the cars drew their power from overhead electrical wires. At last, the new system was ready to test. On April 15, 1886, the first electric trolley in the western hemisphere was put into motion. The Montgomery Advertiser described the maiden journey by writing, “Last night, a street car was seen coming up Commerce minus mules…It moved as easily and smoothly as a ghost in the clear moonlight, and at any speed desired.” Perhaps the enthusiasm of the writer had him overstate the speed of the trolley as “any speed desired” as the top speed was six miles per hour, which was still faster than the mule drawn trolleys. Nonetheless, the speed of the trolley made it worthy enough to be given the name “The Lightning Route.”
The electric street car changed the city of Montgomery. Soon after street cars became electric, trolley tracks began to expand throughout the main streets of downtown. Citizens who had lived in homes on streets which are now dominated by government buildings, hotels, and other businesses, moved out of “town” as the electric street car allowed for expansion. One of the first places to see expansion was Montgomery’s first suburb, Graham’s Woods, better known as Cloverdale, and the trolley soon followed. Not long after, the trolley ran to other suburbs such as Capitol Heights and Highland Park, which were all eventually annexed by the city of Montgomery. The trolley also ran to Oak Park and other entertainment areas.
The success of the electric trolley lasted exactly 50 years. The system stopped running on April 15, 1936, being replaced by buses. Today, there is little left of the trolley system. If you look closely at the intersections of Dexter, Commerce, Court, and Montgomery streets, original trolley tracks were excavated and left open during part of downtown revitalization.
Chris’ Hotdogs is located on Dexter Avenue along the original route of the trolley. In the early life of the restaurant, the trolley would have brought many patrons to have a delicious meal.