Trolley Tuesday 6/2/20 - The Laredo Electric Railway Company

Welcome to the sixth month of Trolley History posts! This month, we'll be looking at electric railroads from Texas and Louisiana, and considering how big the two states are, I can't imagine we'll be strapped for content anytime soon! For our first street railway of the month, we're taking a look at what's considered the first electric street railway west of the Mississippi River: The Laredo Street Railway.

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A LERyCo streetcar runs through a residential neighborhood on its way to
the Heights from Lincoln Street, circa early 1900s
(UTSA Libraries Special Collections)

Laredo, Texas, also known as "The Gateway City" and the "City Under Seven Flags", was originally founded in 1755 as the capital of what was, then, the Republic of the Rio Grande. Being a port city along the mighty big river made Laredo's economy dependent on cross-border trade with Mexico. Across the river is its companion city, Nuevo Laredo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and despite international borders both cities are officially designated an entire metropolitan area. Because of this, the two cities share four international road bridges and one railroad bridge today.

The original Laredo Foot Bridge on the Texas side,
date unknown
(The Portal to Texas History)

One bridge of Laredo's past was the Laredo International Foot Bridge, which was originally erected in 1889 as a through-truss bridge. Around this time, Nuevo Laredo had already launched its own mass transit service in the form of mule cars on November 19, 1886, which served the busy avenue between the railroad station and the Plaza Guardia Nacional. Mule cars were common starter systems all over the United States, and electric streetcars were barely in their infancy by the time the Laredo Improvement Company of Texas was chartered in 1888. Unlike its twin city, the United States side had no interest in a horsecar line and would instead go for something more daring.

The only known photograph of a streetcar in Nuevo Laredo, undated.
(University of Texas, Institute of Texan Cultures)

Frank J. Sprague, streetcar daddy.
(National Inventors Historical Foundation)

After being chartered, the Laredo Improvement Company spent the next year, 1889, contracting the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in New York for the construction of a streetcar line and electric cars. The Sprague Company was simply the first word in streetcars as its founder, Frank J. Sprague, invented and developed the electric motor, the spring-loaded trolley pole, and multiple unit systems for streetcars. It would take some time before systems on the West Coast and the mountains would adopt electric power, but the Laredo Improvement Company wanted something bold, fresh, and new. On January 27, 1890, the first Laredo Electric & Railway Co (LERyCo) streetcar entered service and, three months later on March 12, entered Nuevo Laredo over the International Bridge.

The electric streetcar not only helped connect "Los Dos Laredos" (The Two Laredos), but it also helped the US side build up its suburban infrastructure. One of the neighborhoods the LERyCo served was the Barrio El Azteca, an 18th century Mexican-American neighborhood known for its thriving theater culture. Serving this neighborhood required constructing a bridge over the steeply-banked Zacate Creek via Iturbide Street. By the turn of the 20th century, the Tex-Mex streetcar found its footing and became an essential part of Laredo life.

A LERyCo streetcar crossing Zacate Creek on the Iturbide Street bridge, year unknown.
(Texas Transportation Museum)

The Laredo Foot Bridge is destroyed in 1905, from a postcard
(Public Domain)

However, the 1900s brought about two massive blows to the system. One was in 1905, when the original International Bridge was destroyed by a flood caused by Cyclone April. Thankfully, the damage was mitigated with some quick repairs, but it certainly impeded streetcar service over it. The second blow came in 1918, when the International Bridge and Tramway Co, a company set up to run the streetcar in Nuevo Laredo, closed their side of the railway in 1918. This brought the first electric streetcar in Latin America to an end, and left the Laredo, Texas, streetcar running solo until 1935, when buses took over. 

Not much is known about the operations of the LERyCo on both sides of the Rio Grande, as information is understandably sparse. What is known, however, is by the time the Nuevo Laredo streetcar closed and the International Bridge was rebuilt following a fire, the LERyCo had invested in new Birney safety cars by their introduction in 1918. They would also be the last cars to run on the system by 1935. What remains of the LERyCo today can only be found in photographs and sparse contemporary reports. So it goes, for the streetcars of Laredo.

One of the last streetcars to run in Laredo, a Birney Safety Car in 1935
(Texas Transportation Museum)

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Thank you for reading today's Trolleypost! Every new reader we get always brings us joy, and in turn we hope we can inject some interest in joy in your lives as well. As said before, a majority of this month will focus on historic Texan streetcars and interurban systems before we look at the New Orleans streetcars of the past and today. In the meantime, you can follow myself or my editor on twitter if you wanna support us, and maybe buy a shirt as well! Ride safe out there, you have our support.