The Evolution of Kansas City Streetcars

By Diane Euston

 At one time, Kansas Citians could travel to Independence or Swope Park for mere pennies. Twenty-five streetcar lines crossed intersections throughout the city and the suburbs alike, linking people far and wide with easy access to public transportation.

  At its peak, Kansas City’s streetcar system was one of the best in the entire country, only second to Chicago and San Francisco. 

  Ask a Baby Boomer about their memories of the streetcars they traveled and they’ll tell you of afternoon trips on the Country Club Line or trips to the Troost Line to catch a movie or shop at one of the many businesses. 

  Unfortunately, their time was cut short when the post-World War II era packed streets with automobiles and bus lines. But today, the revitalization of the streetcar surely has some younger people wondering why we opted to wipe away the streetcars in the first place. 

  The answer to that question and the evolution of Kansas City streetcars from horse-drawn wagons to the PCC streetcars is rich with history.

The Kansas City and Westport Horse Railway Company

   When the Hannibal Bridge opened up railroad traffic across the Missouri River in 1869, it led to tremendous growth in the town. Unlike many cities, Kansas City was especially hilly – even as they worked to clear the bluffs near the levee.

    In 1870, the city limits extended only to 9th Street to the south, but McGee’s Addition, platted by Elijah Milton “Milt” McGee (1819-1873) and a newly-arrived businessman named Nehemiah Holmes (1826-1873) in 1857, included a Metropolitan Block and McGee’s Hotel at what would become 16th Street. 

  As McGee and Holmes carefully carved out roads and lots in the middle of a corn field in 1857, people laughed at their ambitions “way out in the country.” P.G. Brock, pioneer engineer, stated in 1887, “We all thought that Milt McGee a speculative idiot for hitching on his addition to the town.” Tied to this ambitious plan was also platting a wide street in the middle of it. It was coined “Grand Avenue” and made sure that its width was as impressive as large boulevards and avenues in eastern cities. 

  Also in these plans were streets named “McGee” and “Holmes” after the two real estate dealers. Today, these streets – along with Grand Avenue – remain and span for many miles throughout the city.

  Nehemiah Holmes, born in 1826 in New York, arrived in Kansas City in 1856 after running a successful mercantile business in Aberdeen, Miss. As McGee’s Addition to Kansas City shows, he wasted no time getting involved in real estate speculation.

  Four miles to the south of the heart of Kansas City was Westport, Mo. Linking the two towns with speedy transit between them was a priority to businessmen of both towns. By the time the Hannibal Bridge spanned the river, Holmes could see another way to earn some money. 

  Old frame buildings that once graced “downtown” were replaced quickly with brick structures. Businessmen who flocked to the city to capitalize on the predicted growth couldn’t afford to stable their own horses, so they walked everywhere.

  In 1869, Holmes gathered together businessmen from Westport, including William Bernard, Edward Price and George Bryant as well as businessmen from Kansas City, including Milt McGee and William Dunlap, to secure a railway track between the two towns.

  The Kansas City and Westport Horse Railway Company was born.

  They secured $50,000 in capital stock and a deal with the city that they wouldn’t pay taxes or assessments for two years, and after that, they were to pay two percent of their earnings to the city. 

  The first tracks laid started at 4th and Main, east to Walnut Street, south on Walnut Street to 12th Street, east on 12th Street to Grand Avenue, and then south on Grand Avenue to 16th Street where for a period of time remained the main terminal in McGee’s Addition.

  Holmes, in anticipation of the upcoming railway, told the Kansas City Journal in May 1870, “Look out for the cars when the bell rings or the driver yells.”

  The 16-passenger car, drawn by mules, didn’t include a conductor; the driver would look through the window to make sure that the passengers deposited the correct money for a ride in a Slawson patent box. The Kansas City Journal reported in October 1870, “The seats, which are arranged like those of an omnibus, are covered with carpet cloth cushions, and in the paneling of the windows, set behind glass, are the rules of the company and instructions to passengers. On the outside above the windows is painted the words ‘Walnut St. and Grand Avenue,’ and below, ‘Kansas City and Westport.’ Altogether they are very elegant and comfortable looking cars, and best of all, they will be in operation in a few days.”

  On November 5, 1870, the first car drawn by mules traveled the route. Over a year later, the railway line extended all the way to Westport where passengers were dropped in front of the Harris House Hotel at Westport Road and Pennsylvania. The trip took 40 minutes, and at its height, the route carried about 450 people per day at 10 cents a ride. The end of the lines on each side had a wooden turntable that allowed for cars to be rotated around to continue the route.

  By December 1872, another company called the Jackson County Horse Railroad opened an east-west line from 4th and Grand to the train station in the West Bottoms.

  Nehemiah Holmes, coined “the father of the street railway,” passed away in 1873 before he could see the true growth of his railway plans, and the competition between companies that formed virtually overnight.

  Thomas Corrigan (1835-1894) and his brother Bernard (1847-1914), construction contractors, started the Corrigan Street Railway Company; they added their own lines and purchased the Union Depot Horse Railway and Jackson County Horse Railway. Self-made men, the Corrigans helped public transit grow horse railroads to 14 miles of track on five different lines by 1876.

  The Corrigans were in control, but everything was about to change with the arrival in 1878 when an ambitious young man trained as an engineer stepped off of a railroad car at Union Depot.

1880s: The Corrigans vs. Robert Gillham

  In 1873, San Francisco was at the cutting edge of cable car lines when a designer named Andrew Hallidie was able to successfully cable the city and run lines there. This technology didn’t reach Kansas City until the 1880s.

  Robert Gillham (1855-1899), born in New York, arrived in Kansas City on his way to Denver in October 1878. He certainly had no reason to stay here, but he saw how crude and disorganized the street railway system was.

  This was especially true in the West Bottoms at Union Depot where, if you wanted to enter the business district, the railway snaked around the large bluffs instead of climbing up them.

  Gillham saw promise in a better system he could design. In 1881, with help from Kersey Coates and John W. Reid, Gillham franchised the Ninth Street Railroad “for an inclined plane and street railway on Ninth Street.”

  This incline bridge was designed to have two fixed cars on a cable, one moving up and one moving down simultaneously. After traveling the incline to the top of the bluff near Quality Hill, people would load onto a mule streetcar and continue their journey.

  Or that was the original plan. 

  The Corrigans were vehemently against this new railroad company and weren’t shy about it. Since they owned the lines running out of the West Bottoms, the creation of a bridge that would be a straight shot up the hill instead of around it was a direct threat to their profits. 

  With the help of William Rockhill Nelson’s Kansas City Star, headlines and articles aimed at garnering support for Gillham’s plan graced the pages of the paper. Investors on the East coast were secured.

  But plans had changed. Gillham enlisted the help of San Francisco’s cable car designer, Andrew Hallidie, to take his design to new heights. Why stop the cables at the top of the bluff?

  Gillham was able to secure approval from a city government that was allied most of the time with the Corrigans, and in July 1883, the Kansas City Cable Railway was organized. 

  The new plan was to start at the eastern city limits (Woodland Avenue) and travel west to the Junction where Main, Delaware and 9th Street intersected; then, the line would run to Quality Hill overlooking the West Bottoms and then descend down the steep hill on the 9th Street Incline and into the shadows of Union Depot.

  It took two years to execute their plan. “At that time even the inclined plane was considered a difficult project,” the Kansas City Journal proclaimed in 1885. “But out of it grew the splendid cable system which the people of Kansas City will soon enjoy.” 

  Thus, Kansas City became the third city to attempt cable cars.

 

 In the meantime, Corrigan was fighting to ensure that no more outside business would destroy the profits of his streetcar lines. He’d worked with his friends at the city to seal the deal on a 30-year extension, but the plan backfired when they reversed their decision to give Corrigan a monopoly of control.

  Thomas Corrigan sold his empire to a group of investors that included the Armours for over $1 million.

  In April 1885, a test car on the route of the cable line was successful, but on April 23, tragedy struck – literally.

  While at the engine house at 9th and Washington, Robert Gillham was seriously injured. While under a car adjusting the grip, “suddenly, without an instant’s warning, the grip fell out of the western slot and swinging from the eastern fastening, shot toward the ground, a distance of eight feet.” 

  Gillham was struck on the side of the head with the 400-pound weight and thrown into a brick wall, unconscious. 

  Miraculously, an emergency operation where part of his skull was removed to release pressure from his brain was performed. Afterward, surgeons placed a six-inch metal plate over the exposed area.

  He survived.

  The cable railway – the brainchild of Gillham – began operation and was a booming success. It carried 13,000 to 15,000 passengers per day. There were accidents, of course, along the way when cables would break and send passengers sailing down the hill.

  By 1885, the city limits extended to 31st Street, and over 30 miles of cable lines were created.

  After Gillham was able to pull off the engineering feat on the Ninth Street Incline, his next challenge was to build a tunnel on 8th Street that would directly connect downtown Kansas City to the Union Depot.

  The bricked tunnel was carved through the bluffs and ran passengers down 8th Street to Delaware. “The tunnel begins about halfway up the face of the bluff, at an elevation of 40 feet and comes out on grade at the west line of Washington Street,” the Kansas City Star wrote in 1887.

The Rise of the Met to Kansas City Railways

  Other companies in business in Kansas City followed the cable car operation, including the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, organized in July 1886. By the late 1880s, many of the old lines were purchased by the company. Coined “The Met” for short, this company led streetcars into a new era.

  In the 1880s, experiments with electricity were well underway, and by 1890, electric-powered lines were more favorable than cable. Historian Monroe Dodd wrote in A Splendid Ride, “In 1891, Kansas City streetcars powered by cable, steam, animals and electricity covered about 64 miles and ridership totaled nine or 10 million. By 1895, that figure had nearly doubled, and almost all of the added mileage was powered by electricity.”

  The Met purchased the competition, including Gillham’s Kansas City Railway Company. Led by J. Ogden Armour and his family, the Met purchased the Kansas City Electric Lighting Company. Thus, they owned the tracks, the cars and the power source for their new electric lines.

  By 1905, the Met had taken control over all streetcar companies, absorbing 15 companies in 19 years. By 1911, there was an electric network of tracks traveling a total of 260 miles.

  Interestingly, the streetcar system was not segregated – although there was one failed attempt in 1910 to make them so.

  In 1916, the electric company was split from the railway company and became Kansas City Power and Light while the railway company was known as Kansas City Railways Company. Fares went up a penny to six cents per ride in 1918.

  The network of tracks was extensive, allowing for routes to neighboring cities such as Leavenworth, St. Joseph and Independence. In 1907, William B. Strang opened a line from 41st and State Line to Olathe, Kan. This interurban railway went 20 miles and helped Strang sell some of his isolated lots of land in Overland Park and elsewhere.

  Hence the name of “Strang Line Road” in Olathe.

  The bulk of the city and its surrounds who shifted to suburban living relied on the streetcars as their primary mode of transportation. Historian Monroe Dodd noted, “At its peak, the company ran more than 740 cars on 319 miles of track.”

  The furthest point streetcars traveled south was to the small town of Dodson at 85th and Prospect. Originally a “dummy line,” the Dodson Line was electrified in 1907. It was thought at one time that the Dodson Line “gave promise of furnishing the most direct service to the south side of the city.”

  Issues with ridership and operating costs caused Kansas City Railways to enter a receivership due to unpaid bills. In 1926, new investors out east created Kansas City Public Service Company to operate the streetcars.

  But changes were well underway by the time World War II was over and Baby Boomers were born to young families. 

  Kansas City would become automobile crazy.

The Demise of the Streetcars

   The Kansas City Public Service Co. was up against the clock. Innovations with the automobile and the motor bus threatened their ridership, so by 1931, they converted a small stretch of their tracks to the motor bus.

  One of the primary reasons that the company was interested in converting to motor bus routes was money. As part of their agreement with the city, the streetcar companies were financially liable to pay for repairs to roads where their lines ran. A motor bus, however, wouldn’t be assessed these charges.

  Another reason to switch to buses had to do with the design of streetcars. They were known to be extremely loud and bumpy on the roads, so in 1941, the company purchased 24 PCC cars which had better lighting, a smoother ride and better ventilation. They graced the Troost Avenue line.

  The conversion to buses was still a priority for Kansas City Public Service Co., but a shortage of gas and rubber during World War II allowed for the streetcars to continue. Other additives of the war effort, such as the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant at Dodson at the edge of the city limits caused the company to install extra tracks from 75th and Wornall to the plant. 

  After World War II, it took a while for automobile plants to produce the demand for cars, so the streetcar era continued for just a little longer.

  But the writing was on the wall. Kansas City wanted private automobiles more than they wanted public transportation – a truth still evident today.

  The post-war era produced the need for a lot of housing – housing that often was well out of the reach of the extensive streetcar lines. To keep up with the times and to eliminate unneeded costs, the lines were slowly replaced with buses. 

  “By the beginning of 1955 Kansas City Public Service Co. was operating 348 motor buses, 159 streetcars and 149 trolley buses,” Monroe Dodd explained in A Splendid Ride. “That year, ridership on the entire system [was] less than half what it had been as late as 1947.”

  Another problem that plagued the streetcars were the number of automobiles that competed for space on the road. The service was far from seamless when up against more traffic.

  The era was over. In 1955, the company announced that they would be converting entirely to the motor bus which was more economical to run. Route 55 down 31st Street shifted to bus service in October of that year, and in 1956, Route 50 down Troost Avenue converted to bus service.

  The famed 8th Street Tunnel carried its final passengers for free rides one last time on April 29, 1956.

  Only 18 streetcars remained running at the start of 1957.

  The last to go was the Route 56 – commonly referred to as the Country Club Line. It, along with Route 53 on Rockhill Road and the Dodson Line – shuttered streetcar service on June 23, 1957 with a special ride just after midnight for the media and enthusiasts.

  The day before, my father, Larry, 10 years old, rode the streetcar with his 15 year-old brother, Ernie. They left their Brookside home at 59th and McGee and jumped on the Country Club Line, heading south on the tracks.

  “It was the last day the streetcar was going to be running, and Ernie said we should catch one of the last rides,” my father recalled.

  They didn’t take the streetcar often as kids, but they did walk the tracks in Brookside on their way to places. That day, they rode that streetcar through Brookside to Waldo down 85th Street to Dodson. “At 10 years old, that was like riding an electric train,” my father said. “At the Waldo stop, I remember thinking that I’d never gone that far south before.”

  That was the problem, you see. Parents of Baby Boomers preferred the automobile to public transportation. Regardless, my father and his older brother vividly remember that ride they took before there would be no more streetcar lines.

  It was, for now, the end of an 88-year-long era.

Revitalization of the Streetcar System

  In May 2016, the city said “yes” once again to its oldest form of public transportation when the first of many planned streetcar routes opened up from the River Market to Union Station. The two miles of track with 16 platforms along the way allow for passengers to travel for free – something that was never possible originally.

  Ironically, we rid ourselves of streetcars in the name of modern progress, and we reintroduced streetcars just shy of 60 years later in order to join modern cities with advanced transportation. 

  On October 24, the extension of this route will open from Union Station to UMKC just south of the Plaza. And, Union Station is commemorating the lengthy history of the streetcars with a new, free exhibit that opened in early September. I was honored to help with this project.

  The horse cars, cable cars and electric cars all feel like separate eras that intertwined our sprawling city together. The return of the streetcar to the city is a return to our deep roots which helped transform a dusty, cavernous Kansas City into a modern metropolitan cityscape.

For a great video on the history of the streetcars created by Grandview High School students in Diane Euston’s KC History class, search “The Evolution of Kansas City Streetcars” on YouTube!

Additional Reading: A Splendid Ride: The Streetcars of Kansas City 1870-1957 by Monroe Dodd