[milwaukee-electric] The first KERy.

[Louis Rugani]

-----Original Message-----
From: mrcooby
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:04 PM
To: KenoshaStreetcars at yahoogroups.com
Subject: ~ The first KERy.

What did downtown businessmen oppose in 1900 because they thought it
would destroy their trade?
    Sometimes those who stand in the way of progress are their own worst
enemies.
    Take, for instance, the downtown businessmen of 1900. When a
franchise for street car transportation was granted to the Chicago firm
of Haines and Clausen, the old boys went ballistic.
    Why, those noisy things would disturb the horses, and customers would
avoid the area like the plague!
    The fight to get Kenosha's first street railway system was a long
one.
    In 1900, horse and buggy was still the most common form of
transportation. The first 300 feet of track was put down that summer on
Seventh Avenue, but that was all the progress on the project until the
following spring.

    By the end of the year, track had been installed in earnest along
Seventh Avenue between 38th and 52nd Streets � most of which were
ripped out in the last few months � picking up again from 55th to
59th streets. The line ended a block north on Eighth Avenue.
    A second connected route began on 56th Street between Seventh and
24th avenues, running on 24th Avenue from 56th to 63rd streets and east
again on 63rd to 18th Avenue. Later, the electric wire that provided the
power to run the streetcars was installed and the two routes were
connected.
    The routes effectively set the framework of mass transit from the
working-class neighborhoods of the north side to the center of commerce
downtown and to the west-end industrial sites.
    Only the affluent southeast side of town was unserved. This was not
an oversight, but by design.
    N.R. Allen, president of Allen Tannery, lived in the 5900 block of
Eighth Avenue, and didn't want a streetcar going past his property.
He filed an injunction on the company to stop it.
    That was just the beginning of the troubles for the Kenosha Electric
Railway.
First, the franchise was declared null and void in court because it was
an out-of-state firm. Then the city attorney declared the ordinance
allowing the establishment of the line had been passed fraudulently.
    Aldermen Albert Smith, Peter Pirsch and John Gaster were investigated
for improprieties in the matter. Gustave Clausen, partner in the
franchise, was accused of bribing Gaster with $300 for his support of
the measure.
    The latter case went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court
before charges against Gaster were dropped.
    All the legal entanglements ended when the franchise was sold to
Kenosha resident Bion J. Arnold for $17,000. In 1902 the remaining track
and system work was completed by a crew of 40 men and seven supervisors.
    The first two streetcars arrived in January 1903 and were promptly
painted yellow and black. General Manager Willis Russell pulled one of
the cars over the entire loop with a team of horses to make sure it
would follow the track.
    It was a rush to the finish line as the Feb. 4 deadline for
completing the railway approached. A fire in the powerhouse of the
Kenosha Gas & Electric Company destroyed the electric railway generator.
Bion had another generator shipped in, and 50 men worked setting up the
machines at the power house on Jan. 31.
    At noon on Feb. 1, 1903, the first streetcar went into public
operation with Russell as the motorman and John Fadgin as the conductor.
    The sounds of a clanging streetcar bell and the hissing electric
current brought hundreds out of their homes on the track route to cheer
the first car as it made its way from the barn to the Main Street (Sixth
Avenue) center junction.
    Russell let everyone who wanted a ride jump on before arriving
downtown, where everyone had to disembark to make way for the first
paying customer, Mayor Charles H. Pfenning. Total receipts for the day
were $27.
    The very next morning the two new streetcars started out on the loop,
but that night only one returned to the barn.
    During the first day, it was discovered that the extended trolley arm
was too short to stay in contact with the electric feed wire above the
Chicago & Northwestern crossing on Elizabeth (63rd) Street, which was at
ground level. (The elevation wouldn't be built for another 30 some
years.)
    Just before 4 p.m. Russell was approaching the crossing from the
west. He sped up to shorten the powerless crossing, but the streetcar
jumped its tracks and came to rest on the train's tracks.
    The passengers were quickly evacuated, and someone was sent down the
track towards Strong (65th) Street to flag down the 4:03 p.m. mail
train. The train was right on time and moving too fast for the engineer
to avoid hitting the streetcar.
    People on the street dove for cover as the train hit the wooden
streetcar and smashed it to kindling. Passengers on the train were
thrown from their seats, but fortunately no one was seriously injured in
the accident. The streetcar was a total loss at $2,500, and the cow
catcher on the engine was slightly damaged.
    But streetcars were to become an important part of Kenosha's
daily life. The shattered car soon was replaced and the fleet grew. The
primary system of 4.3 miles of track carried 378,000 passengers in its
first 10 months of operation, an overwhelming vote of support from a
town of about 13,000 people.
    The system operated for 29 years before it was replaced by the
"trackless trolley" system.