Trolley Thursday 4/22/21 - Friedel Klussman, the Cable Car Lady

It's honestly miraculous that San Francisco was able to keep its century-or-so-old cable car system, long after other American cities had scrapped their own in favor of electric cars. The rolling museums of both the Powell Street Lines and the California Street Railway have now become so emblematic of the City by the Bay that they rake in millions of tourist dollars a year (last year excluded, obviously) and are a beloved icon for both tourists and locals alike. But did you know that this San Francisco treat was almost scrapped in favor of trolley buses? In defiance of what was billed as "progress" and "modernization" stood Mrs. Friedel Klussmann, whose efforts to preserve the cable cars as we have them today have earned her the nickname of "The Cable Car Lady". On today's Trolley Thursday, let's raise a glass to the Cable Car Lady and her admirable efforts to preserve San Franciscan History.

  

Rolling Anachronisms

MSR car No. 501 passes a road crew outbound to Jackson and Mason Streets in the 1940s.
(Unknown Author)

MSR No. 511 on the Powell/Eddy St. Turnaround in
the last vestiges of private ownership before Muni.
(Michael Strauch)

In 1944, the San Francisco Municipal Railway (or Muni) purchased the Market Street Railway (MSR), its main competitor, after the latter went bankrupt. After absorbing the once-private company, now all of San Francisco's transit was under city control, including the two remaining Powell Street cable car lines: The Powell-Mason and the Washington-Jackson. For a system as already well-developed and modern (for the time) as Muni, with its diesel and trolley buses as well as modern streamlined streetcars, two lines populated with antiquated wooden cars weren't good for showing the "progress" Muni had made in the aftermath of World War II. 

A Cal Cable car is stopped on the old Presidio Avenue terminus in 1950, as
a "Big Ten" No. 1015 passes by on the soon-extinct B Geary line.
(Friends of the Cable Car Museum)

The California Street Cable Railway (or Cal Cable for short) was still an independent operation under the control of former governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford's estate, adding another three cable car lines that remained largely unchanged into the late 1940s. Trolley buses had taken over much of the other former cable car lines, featuring torque-y electric motors that could climb hills much faster and more efficiently than being dragged up by a cable. This, then, would be a good excuse to junk the cable car, no?

Enter the Players

Mayor Roger Lapham in a
moment of "business", 1940s.
(Lewis B. Lapham, Golf Digest)

The man who planned on signing the Cable Cars' death warrant was Mayor Roger Lapham (1883-1962), San Francisco's 32nd mayor and the first following the end of World War II. Lapham was a businessman's businessman, serving as an industry representative of the National War Labor Board during World War II and going up against the prominent labor leader Harry Bridges of the Congress of Industrial Relations in the 1936 San Francisco waterfront strike. When he took his mayor's seat in 1944, Lapham pledged to only serve one term and turn San Francisco into a world-class modern metropolis. One of his actions was proposing the long-overdue purchase of the MSR by driving the old mayor's horsecar up and down Market Street, which did go through but later backfired when the increased wartime revenue went elsewhere instead of to Muni's upkeep. He even faced a recall in 1946 when he tried to raise Muni fares, already adding to his unpopular opinion around the carhouses. In 1947, he then proposed his most-infamous action as mayor: scrapping the Powell Street lines for being "too expensive to keep in operation" compared to buses, with full expectation that the city would just accept the change.

Boy was he wrong. 

Freidel Klussmann (center) inspecting one of the turntables on the Powell Street Line in 1949.
No man of woman born could save the streetcars, as the Fates dictated.
(San Francisco Cable Car Museum)

A certificate hailing Wells-Fargo
Bank as a benefactor for helping to
save the Powell Street Cable.
(Wells Fargo History)

After Mayor Lapham's annual message to the Board of Supervisors on January 27, 1947, two prominent city cultural groups met to formulate a plan to defy the city on March 4, 1947. Under the auspices of the San Francisco Federation of the Arts and the California Spring Blossom and Wildflower Association, along with leaders of 27 other civic groups, the Citizen's Committee to Save the Cable Cars was born with Mrs. Friedel Klussmann (1896-1986) at the helm. A native of Telegraph Hill (which once was home to an observatory served by a funicular), a board member of the Federation of Arts, and husband to Hans Klussmann who built their farmhouse at 260 Green Street, Klussmann was always involved in keeping San Francisco beautiful, and that included preserving as much of its historic value as possible. Not much is known about her early life apart from her coming from a prominent place in San Franciscan society, but what is known is the battle she faced in 1947 against Mayor Lapham to save the Powell Street lines from the jaws of oblivion.

"The Powell Street Line is a Plucked Duck"

Columnist Herb Caen riding on the Powell/Market Turntable, 1953.
(Fred Lyon, Market Street Railway)

At least, that's what famous San Franciscan columnist (and source of dry wit) Herb Caen penned following Mayor Lapham's annual message on January 30th, wryly noting: "But keep tabs and see if the situation doesn’t boil down to this eventually: The Calif. St. line will be kept in operation, for tourists and sentimentalists, at greatly increased fare—maybe as high as 20 cents a ride.” Lapham, always the businessman, hated the "strong, sentimental reasons" for keeping the cable car and opined in his message:

“The fact remains that the sentimentalists do not have to pay the bills and do not have to run the risk of being charged with criminal negligence in the very possible event a cable breaks and a car gets loose on one of our steep hills.”

Mayor Lapham (Center) poses for a handshake in front of a new Fageol Twin Coach Bus.
Ironically, the bus still says "Railway" on it, which would be meaningless without a railway.
(Market Street Railway)

Missives and posters from Muni began circulating at the end of the month, officially announcing "CABLE CARS ON WAY OUT; CITY ORDERS SUPER BUSES" and "DAYS OF THE GRIPMAN ARE NEARLY OVER". Ten Fageol Twin-Coaches were then put on order to replace the cable cars on "Sunday traffic" to eliminate any unneeded weekend expenses, but there was a problem. In wet weather, the "Super Bus" couldn't get enough traction to climb the old brick-paved roads. Worse still, Utilities Manager James H. Turner also came out to say that "no time should be mentioned for the possible replacement of the cable cars," further adding that the buses were only chose for "tough hill routes", not to replace the Powell Street Lines entirely. This, obviously, flew in the face of Lapham's idea of the buses as a cheaper alternative to the cable car, but the old mayor wouldn't go down without a fight, especially not for some little old sentimental lady. 

The SF Chronicle (who later apologized for this and other pro-bus headlines)
declares the Mayor's intent to buy his "Super Buses" from Fageol.
(San Francisco Chronicle)

Mayor Lapham Doubles Down

Cal Cable No. 12 passes a new Fagaeol Hill-Climbing
Twin Coach on the California Street line inbound to 
Market Street, 1947. Ironically, the Cal Cable was not,
at this time, under threat of closure.
(Market Street Railway)

With Muni's marketing department and the newspapers at his beck and call, Mayor Lapham released another missive that argued the Powell Street cable cars were losing money due to their advanced age and the lack of available replacement materials like rails, wire rope, and younger gripmen meant the system was "unsafe". (Interestingly, he never went after the private Cal Cable as that was still making money on its own.) Klussmann and her group penned an immediate response, titled "Statement of Retention of the Powell Street System 1947", that not only put forward the Powell lines as a guaranteed tourism money-maker, whose loss would so greatly affect San Francisco's identity that it "cannot be measured", but that also the much larger "Super-Buses" would make loading people on-and-off slow and clog Powell Street with additional motor traffic. As if to rub salt in the wound of Lapham's claims that the cable car could "break" and "get loose", Director John E. Curley of the Bureau of Accident Prevention noted that in the Muni system's recent history, 57 deaths involved Muni streetcars and buses, while cable cars had "none." 

Mayor Roger Lapham in a less jovial moment, trying
to see if he can forget what a "cable car" even means.
(Cable Car Guy)

While this battle was raging, a harried Mayor Lapham found his office increasingly flooded with letters from concerned and irate citizens abhorring his plan to junk the cable car. Some, like a Mrs. Francis X. Cussen, complained that the new buses on what was once the Sacramento-Clay cable line was so overloaded that after it got stuck on a hill, the passengers left to ride the Cal Cable instead. Klussmann continued her missives to newspaper editors, now calling for the people of San Francisco to get involved, arguing: 

“The very fact that the Mayor’s own committee on transit was divided on the retention of the cable-car lines in San Francisco shows conclusively that the issue should and must be presented to the voters.”

Mayor Lapham takes to the brake handle on
ex-Sutter Street trailer No. 54 (named "Gray Mare"
for this occasion) to mock the pro-cable car people.
This car is now in the Cable Car Museum.
(SFGate)

Support soon grew for the growing civic movement as the Citizen's Committee began looking for signatures to put the cable cars on the November ballot. This move was suggested by City Supervisor Dan Gallaher, who offered to amend Muni's charter to make the Public Utilities Commission run the city's "existing cable car system". Within the first four hours of the campaign's public initiative, 1,000 signatures were already received from all over the city and this further rankled Mayor Lapham, who by now was wishing neither he nor his cronies ever heard of the word "cable car". He even opined in the SF Chronicle on April 4, 1947, after declining to sign the initiative:  

“I believe I can say, without being accused of undue vanity, that my being retained as mayor can hardly be compared to retention of an outmoded and broken down form of transportation.”

Previously, Lapham had signed his own recall petition; make of that what you will. Lapham even took to the streets to drag out Sutter Street Cable Railway trailer No. 54 (now preserved in the Cable Car Museum) and dressed it up as the old mayoral horsecar to run it down Market Street as a way to "condemn those who distrusted progress." Hilariously, the stunt backfired when passersby yelled at him to save the horsecar as well. On May 5, the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to approve Supervisor Gallaher's amendment on the November ballot and the tide against Mayor Lapham was turning. Instead of junking the cable cars, it looked as if the cable cars were now going to junk him instead!

Rock the Vote!

A campaign poster promoting the cable car
issue for the upcoming ballot, as disseminated
by the Citizen's Committee and Friedel Klussmann.
(Cable Car Museum)

Campaigning for the cable cars came swift and fast, from both celebrities and local businesses alike. Among the latter, it was quickly realized that without the cable cars filling the city's tourism coffers, local business would flounder and there was no greater advertising tool than a cable car. Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, two writers for the San Francisco examiner, noted that Friedel Klussmann "designated to wield terror and authority once possessed by the Vigilance Committee of 1851", and terror was right. Famous theater actress Katherine Cornell announced she'd "never again play in San Francisco" if the Powell cars were junked, while organizations like the Shriners, the Western Pacific Railroad, and even Salvador Dali showed their support. An increasingly embattled Mayor Lapham saw November coming faster than he wanted to, and at this point his fight to defend his new "Super Buses" fled him.

Klussmann, meanwhile, was having a barnstorming campaign as November rolled around. Two days before "Measure 10" was put on the ballot on the November 4th election, she chartered two Powell cars, Nos. 524 and 527, for a ride. No. 527 was lettered for the now-extinct Sacramento-Clay line, which was bustituted in 1942, as a reminder to votes what might be lost if the measure didn't go through. By some miracle, November 4 came and went with an overwhelming landslide in favor of retaining the Powell Street cable car lines under Muni operation, 166,989 "yes" votes to 51,457 "no" votes. The Citizen's Committee had done it, succeeding in saving their historic cable cars for the "sentimentalists" and "tourists" alike. In her victory statement, an ecstatic Friedel Klussmann stated:

"It is wonderful to know that San Franciscans appreciate their famous, efficient, and safe cable cars."

  

"The Powell California Street Line is a Plucked Duck"

A now 57-year-old Freidel Klussman ardently defends against
the bustitution of the California Street Cable Railway during a
Board of Supervisors hearing, 1952.
(SF Chronicle) 

"Look out for the Curve!" yells the gripman as O'Farrell,
Hyde & Jones car No. 57 curves onto Pine Street from Hyde,
inbound for Downtown. This line was cut back to Hyde and
Washington street in 1955 and grafted onto the Powell-Mason line.
(Market Street Railway)

Despite the overwhelming victory that kept the Powell Street lines in service, now it was Cal Cable's turn on the chopping block in 1951. Despite lasting so long as a private entity, Cal Cable was now shut down abruptly after the company was unable to afford insurance. Mrs. Klussmann did not have to prod Muni to purchase Cal Cable, they eventually did that in 1952, but two bond measures to rehabilitate the three lines failed at the ballot box. Thus came talks of "consolidating" the Cal Cable, with the O'Farrell-Hyde-Jones line being the most surplus to operations; furthermore, downtown interests had their eye on turning O'Farrell Street into a one-way automobile thoroughfare. As Muni had a responsibility to retain only the Powell Street cars, that left Cal Cable a ripe duck left for the plucking and cooking. "Muni Plan A", proposed by former transit bus salesman Marmion D. Mills, desired to keep the Powell-Mason line but graft the California Street Line with the Hyde line and scrap the Powell-Jackson Line that was already protected by the city charter. Thankfully, "Plan A" was deemed too expensive but the Cal Cable was still under threat of complete closure by City Public Utilities Manager James H. Turner.

Two-way cable car traffic fights one-way street traffic on Pine and Hyde.
(Walt Vielbaum, Market Street Railway)

The Board of Supervisors were visibly shaken at the thought of dealing with Mrs. Friedel Klussmann again, and tried their best to appease her by going with a modified Plan A to combine the Hyde Street Line with the Jones Shuttle Line and abandon the tracks on O'Farrell. With her answer being a firm no, Supervisor J. Eugene McAteer threw his weight behind Klussmann to support whatever she wanted. When Klussmann expressed her desire to see all three Cal Cable lines preserved along with the two Powell Lines, McAteer backed off and instead supported "Muni Plan B". This compromise gave us what we know as the San Francisco cable car system today, featuring the California Street Line truncated at Van Ness Blvd and lashing the O'Farrell-Hyde-Jones to the Powell-Mason at Washington Street.

A sorry pack of lies from the unaffiliated
"Cable Car Festival Committee", an anti-cable car front.
(Harre Demoro, Market Street Railway)

With downtown interests backing "Proposition E" to rip up the tracks on O'Farrell, Muni actively hired an outside public relations man, David Jones (no relation to Davy Jones or David Bowie) to drum up support for Proposition E. Jones was quite the insidious figure, setting up fake "cable car ladies" committees that agreed with Plan A and actively lying that the plan would keep "every cable car on the street today" despite basically decimating the system down to just Russian Hill and the Powell lines. Residents of Pacific Heights, who supported retaining the Washington-Jackson Lines, didn't even know their cable car was getting ripped up. The fact that Jones was being paid with city money raised plenty of red flags, downright illegal ones too, and despite the passage of Prop. E in June 1954 (by a scant 12,000 votes), the drama still wasn't over. Proposition J, a fixer proposition fielded by Klussmann and attorney Morris Lowenthal, vowed to undo what Prop. E did by keeping to Klussmann's original intentions to preserve Cal Cable entirely, but it never even pass with half the votes that Measure 10 did seven years ago. The tracks on O'Farrell Street were ripped up as the votes were being counted, and a badly-shaken Friedel Klussmann was left with only one line of the California Street Cable Railway. 

The infamous "Battle of Car 51", where pro-cable car protestors attempted to stop
Cal Cable No. 51 from completing its last run on the O'Farrell-Hyde-Jones line.
(Market Street Railway)

An irate cable car throws David Jones (right) and 
Public Utilities General Manager James Turner (left)
out following the 1954 Proposition E vote.
(SF Chronicle, Market Street Railway)

Thanks to the misdirection of Muni and the slight consequence of having Jones fork over two months of pay back to the city, the damage was done. The bits of the O'Farrell-Hyde-Jones lines from Market Street, O'Farrell Street, and the Washington/Mason loop to Alta Plaza were lost, along with the California Street Line which was now half its length up to Van Ness Blvd. This severe reduction of service now rendered the Cable Cars as tourist attractions, instead of a viable way to move about downtown. Despite this loss, Mrs. Klussmann was at least relieved her efforts led to the preservation of some of San Francisco's history. After all, she got the whole Powell-Mason line preserved and half of the California Street Line. As for the remaining bit of the O'Farrell-Hyde-Jones from Hyde Street Pier to Washington and Mason Street, those bits were grafted onto the Powell/Mason line, with the old Ferries & Cliff House powerhouse being restored to provide moving cables for the Powell-Hyde, Powell-Mason, and California Street line. The new Powell-Hyde line also necessitated the addition of a turntable at Hyde Street Pier, in front of Ghirardelli Square.

A map by Market Street Railway shows the lines lost and the lines saved following the Cal Cable debacle.
(Market Street Railway)

Keep San Francisco Beautiful

A 1978 letter from Supervisor Harvey Milk to Friedel Klussmann, both transit legends in their own right.
(What's On the 6th Floor?)

Freidel Klussmann visits the Ferries & Cliff House
Carbarn (now the SF Cable Car Museum) in 1973.
(Peter Vilms, SF Magazine)

After her fight to save the three cable car lines we know and love today, Mrs. Klussmann returned to her private life as head of the "San Francisco Beautiful" movement, involving herself in civic cultural projects to "protect and enhance the city's urban environment" and "improve the quality of daily life". In 1964, her cable cars were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964, the first and only moving historic landmark in America. Also in 1964, a woman sued Muni when she claimed that a "minor cable car mishap" turned her into a "nymphomaniac", with the ruling eventually awarding the "nymphomaniac" $50,000. 

Weird stories aside, San Francisco never let Mrs. Klussmann down and diligently maintained its historic cable cars. In 1979, then-mayor Dianne Feinstein won $60 million in federal funding to repair or replace sections of track and cars. The comprehensive rebuilding required shutting the system down until 1984. Muni and the volunteers of the San Francisco Cable Car Museum have since constructed new cable cars at the Ferries & Cliff House car barn, a new turntable at Hyde/Beach in front of Ghirardelli Square (where everyone usually gets on) and a new electric propulsion system for the cables, bringing operational technology into the 21st century.

Reconstruction work on Hyde Street in 1983, where 69 (nice)
city blocks were torn up to reinvigorate the rail and cable infrastructure.
Considering what happened not 30 years before, I'd say it's karma.
(Steve Morgan)

Friedel Klussmann in a moment of peace, sitting in
a Powell-Hyde cable car that she worked hard to preserve.
(The Frisc)

As for Friedel Klussmann, the "Cable Car Lady", she passed at the age of 90 in 1986, two years after the cable cars were re-invigorated. All cable cars were decorated in black ribbons and bunting for the occasion, and gripmen and conductors everywhere raised a glass to her memory. In 1997, the 50th anniversary of the great Cable Car battle, the Hyde/Beach turntable was dedicated to Mrs. Klussmann as the "Friedel Klussmann Memorial Turnaround". Even to modern traction fanatics today, her "Battle of Wills" against Mayor Lapham is the stuff of legend, and without her we probably would not have had such an iconic San Franciscan treat remaining today. It's generally assumed that, had Measure 10 not passed, Cal Cable would still be gone a few years later. So, dear reader, if you're ever in San Francisco again and you see a cable car climb halfway to the stars on California or Powell Street, ignore the long tourist lines and appreciate that it took one woman, out of many, to keep San Francisco's iconic cable cars on the streets. After all, had Mayor Lapham got his way, San Francisco would look a lot different today.

Tourists pack the Friedel Klussmann Memorial Turnaround on 
another packed day on the cable cars. Despite lines lasting as long
as a Disneyland attraction, it's all worth it to continue celebrating the work
and legacy of one of San Francisco's greatest citizens.
(Alamy Stock Photo)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you take a spin on the turnaround. My resources today included Walter Rice and Gripman Val Lupiz's article, "The Cable Car Lady and the Mayor", which I cribbed heavily in my own version of events, an SF Chronicle article apologizing for wanting to junk the cable car, a FoundSF article on the Cable Cars where that weird nymphomaniac story came from, the archives of the San Francisco Cable Car Museum, the SFMTA Photo Archives, and the Market Street Railway (who also provided the story about the Cal Cable debacle). I'd also recommend not only buying Herb Caen's 1972 children's book, "The Cable Car and the Dragon" but also Virginia Lee Burton's 1952 children's book, "Maybelle the Cable Car". The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we look at some of the preserved cable cars around California and talk about the modern Market Street Railway! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!