Welcome back to a carhouse-quarantined Trolley Tuesday, which is still right on schedule, where today my editor Nakkune and I will be taking you through the state of Wyoming's public transit operations in a bit to fill up the remaining month since we've just about exhausted everything Arizona had to offer. Now I know we have the whole pandemic going around, but rest assured: in times of quite possible one of the biggest and most mysterious pandemics in recent memory, the best thing we can all do right now is be healthy, be hygienic, and most of all be level-headed. That way, we can all ensure our loved ones and ourselves are safe from the virus. In the meantime, allow yourself to be distracted as we start our journey in the Cowboy State with the Gem of the Plains: Laramie!
(All info contained and retold in here originally appeared in the
Laramie Boomerang by Judy Knight, all rights reserved, no plagiarism intentional.)
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Laramie, WY, circa 1888. Good doggy.
(Old Town Laramie) |
In the 1890s, Laramie, WY was the epicenter of several regional railroads and industries serving not just cattle and meat packing, but also rolling mills, railroad tie treatment, breweries, glass manufacturing, and electric provisions. The University of Wyoming was also established not long before, with an agricultural college added by the turn of the decade. Laramie was also mighty progressive, as several women were able to cast votes and serve on juries long before the Seneca Falls Convention under the first Wyoming Territory legislature. To satisfy the growing modernism of what was once one of the most lawless towns in the territory, it was high time for that great tool of modernism to make its debut: the horsecar.
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A horsecar of the Market Street Railway, circa 1880s
(SFMSR Archives)
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The first corporation to announce a proper street railway was organized in 1887 by James Vine, Hon. J.W. Blake, and then-mayor N.F. Spicer serving as the board of trustees. Unfortunately, this effort seemed to go nowhere and it wasn't until 1890 when the Laramie Improvement Company put advertisements in the
Laramie Boomerang proclaiming new streetcars to their subdivisions in East Laramie in June 1890, emulating the popular streetcar suburban boom. Unfortunately, this went nowhere either and the town was itching for some decent public transit to make the town mobile. This is where Mr. Francis M. McHale enters the picture.
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An image of Francis M. McHale, if we could find one.
(Who knows?) |
Not much is known about McHale's personal life, other than his birth in 1858 and various marriage certificates, birth certificates, and census data up to 1910. What is well known, however, is how this young gun showed up to Laramie in March 1891 and sent the entire town into a tizzy. At the time, McHale was a 33 year-old lawyer and officer employed under the Western Farm Mortgage Trust of Denver; he was also married with one daughter and another on the way, and was every bit the family man he displayed as himself.
McHale first arrived in Laramie with the intention of buying oil property in Albany County (of which Laramie is the county seat). He also had an interest in building a “$50,000 hotel at the corner of Second and Garfield” (close to the Laramie Railroad Depot) but nobody would sell him the land or the buildings occupying that spot. It seemed by this point, his big mouth got ahead of him and McHale grandly proclaimed he was developing a railroad going from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, to increase lumber traffic through Laramie and promote the "healing nature of the Springs that 'could cure anything from hydrophobia to delirium tremens." Word of his grand promises reached the Laramie City Council and from there, McHale had them on a leash.
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An early converted horsecar running on electric wires,
under the Milwaukee Electric and Light Co, 1890
(We Energies)
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At the time, many contemporary street railways were switching to electrical power but electricity was hard to come by and expensive to install for many smaller towns, and Laramie was no exception. Despite the existence of an electrical plant in town, McHale drew up plans with local business owners August Trabing and James Vine to create a horse-drawn system using a corporation charter he gained from the state of Wyoming. McHale also stirred the local crowd, holding interviews and gaining support until he city council voted unanimously to grant the overeager businessman an exclusive franchise as the "Laramie Tramway Company", or LaTCo. $100,000 of capital over various stocks and bonds were raised and many skeptical councilors were left shocked this got though.
McHale promised the city council that eight miles of horse-drawn track would help satisfy public movement, with the choice of animal power a consequence of a ban on steam-powered trains through neighborhoods. The city council found this agreement worthy to honor, and lightly warned McHale that if four miles were not laid by the same date, 1892, the franchise would be forfeited. This deal lasted until August of that year, when McHale returned to Laramie saying that his "Denver directors" had had an epiphany and desired an electric system instead. (Suspiciously, none of his cohorts nor any Laramie-based LaTCo officers were consulted.)
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The "Huge Monster" of Laramie, where Union Pacific rail was rolled and ties were treated.
(Albany County Historical Society) |
The Union Pacific was briefly swindled into the deal, as McHale wanted to purchase 24-lb rail from their Laramie rolling mill rather than the 16-lb rail commonly used by any normal horseline. All through the fall and winter, McHale and his friends continued to try to drum up financial support for the line while track construction languished. Suspiciously, what little construction the
Boomerang could detail was documented 50 years later, wherein "one streetcar company was using cover of darkness to tear up track laid by a competing company."
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A Western Farm Mortgage & Trust advertising
flyer from Lawrence, Kansas, 1895.
(Unknown Author) |
1892 brought with it a landslide of trouble, starting when McHale's employers, the Western Farm Mortgage Trust Co, was thrust into recievership due to a drop in wheat prices and ill-timed farm expansions that left many Colorado farmers unable to pay their mortgage, bankrupting the trust. The trouble continued that summer of June 1892, when all the Albany County properties McHale bought or traded for were put at auction by legal action from G.W. Griffith, one of McHale's former friends and a representative of LaTCo in the East.
Realizing they were all effed, and with the franchise about to expire, Griffith, Trabing and Thomas all pleaded the city council to extend the franchise and change the name to the "Laramie Electric Tramway and Light Company." (along with wanting exclusive rights to mount electric lights in Laramie) The trio did this to at least save the money they had invested into McHale's grandiose scheme. The city council took pity and granted the amended franchise, with the
Boomerang suspiciously reporting, "Mr. F.M. McHale, originally president of the company is now not connected and is living in Kansas." This was the last time any talk of a trolley appeared in Laramie, which continued into the 20th Century without a single mile of track ever laid.
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The much more developed Cheyenne Electric Railway, just before 1917
(Ranch Wife) |
So what happened next? Both August Trabing and James Vine, original investors in LaTCo, ended up becoming mayors of Laramie later on, while both the Colorado farmers and Eastern investors who funneled their money into McHale's schemes all lost their entire investments through the failure of Western Farm. As for McHale, he and his family was found to be living in Hoisington, Kansas in 1895, then moved to Lawrence, Kansas, by 1900. By 1910, the trail went cold as census records revealed McHale was living in Knoxville, Tennessee. Thus ends the odd, swindling saga of Mr. McHale's horsecar scheme.
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Laramie continues to be a vital outpost of the Union Pacific, with the town
taking care of the old railroad depot and adjoining park.
(Dieselpunks) |
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Thank you for reading today's hard swerve Trolley Tuesday. As always, you can find
mine and
my editor's Twitters in the links provided, you can also help support the history posts by
buying a shirt. Despite the way we all have to isolate ourselves for the forseeable future, it is our hope your interest and attention are positively affected by our posts. Ride safe, ride healthy, and we'll see you on Thursday.
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