Streetcars crisscrossed the city from St. Elmo to Riverview
Streetcars on hilly streets. For most Americans those four words evoke visions of San Francisco.
But for an 80-year stretch spanning the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, Chattanooga
was also a streetcar town.
Today’s photo, submitted by Times Free Press reader Arlene Rogers, is an image of the Boyce Streetcar, the last Chattanooga streetcar in operation before the trollies were replaced by city buses.
Rogers said the snapshot was found in a small envelope of photographs given to her about 25 years ago by a now-deceased church friend. The envelope also contained last week’s “Remember When, Chattanooga?” photo of Glass Street in East Chattanooga.
There is no information about the identities of
the people in the streetcar photo, which is dated July 7, 1943.
The Boyce Streetcar, so named for its Boyce Street destination, was an East Chattanooga landmark at a time when that section of the city was flush with business.
ChattanoogaHistory.com, a website featuring vintage photos of the city where this picture is now viewable, notes: “East Chattanooga was, for a short time, incorporated as a town beginning in 1917. Annexation in 1925 rebranded the area as the 12th Ward of the city of Chattanooga.”
The Chattanooga NewsFree Press noted in a Page 1 article on April 8, 1947, that the Boyce Streetcar was being retired two days later.
“The last streetcar in Chattanooga will creak and clang into the Southern Coach Lines, Inc., barns during the wee hours of Thursday morning, bringing an end to the 80-year trolley era in the city,” the article noted.
In the same story, an official of Southern Coach lines, which operated the streetcar, announced that the company was taking delivery of 14 new 41-passenger buses primarily for a new route serving the East Chattanooga, Glenwood and Avondale neighborhoods.
The end of the streetcar era was something of a cultural phenomenon. Press reports noted that “a number of East Chattanooga residents” were expected to make the final trip on the Boyce Streetcar, a midnight run. Among them was WDEF radio personality Luther Massingill, who died in 2014.
Mule-drawn streetcars first appeared in Chattanooga in 1867, shortly after the end of the Civil War, according to newspaper archives. The first electric trolley line was installed in 1888 by the City Street Railroad Co. In the early 20th century, the Tennessee Electric Power Co. took over the electric trolleys.
Records also show that the transformation from streetcars to buses began in 1942 but was delayed due to World War II. Other streetcar lines in Chattanooga included routes to places such as North Chattanooga, Alton Park, Carter Street, Riverview, East 9th Street, East Lake and Rossville, Ga.
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