Trolley Thursday 11/30/21 - The Denver Tramway... Revisited

On today's Trolley Tuesday rewrite, we're returning to the Mile-High City as we look at the history of America's last independent streetcar system: the Denver Tramway. Originally written in two parts, I'm choosing to rewrite this one as I feel like most of my earlier two-parts can now be concisely bunched into one whole post with much better information within. But Denver's history is just more than privatized transit, as its history goes back to the late 1860s and is full of agitation, monopoly, and big unique streetcars. So saddle up and get Rocky Mountain High, as we turn our eyes to the complete history of the Denver Tramway!

  

Powered by the Ponies

A horse of the Denver Horse Railway Company assumes control of the car as a motorhorse
in this 1910 false-color postcard commemorating the start of trolley service.
(HipPostcard) 

Denver, putting the horse before the car since 1867.
(Posner Center)

In 1867, the Denver Horse Railway Company became the first street railway established in the Mile-High City, and with that establishment came a rather astonishing franchise: a thirty-five year city charter stating "the sole and exclusive right and privilege of construction of a horse railroad in the city of Denver and additions thereto." Note the verbiage of "the sole and exclusive right and privilege", which later came into play when accusations of monopolies starting being thrown around. Despite this daunting franchise, the Denver Horse Railway Company opened its first line between Seventh/Larimer Streets and "Five Points" by December 17, 1871. Due to the eventual growth of the small horsecar, the name was changed in 1872 to the Denver City Railway Company (DCR) and by 1877, the railway employed eighteen men, thirty-horses, and twelve horsecars. In that same year, the DCR carried 392,420 passengers, at a time when Denver's census records only showed a population of 35,629 by 1880.

A very fancy Denver Tramway No. 31 stops at
15th and Lawrence in the 1890s.
(William Henry Jackson, Denver Public Library)

While the street railway was hailed as a success, it left behind the one group of people who capitalized on street railways the most: land speculators. As the DCR was being refurbished under new ownership in 1883, these men sought to capitalize on their own lack of success (and street railway coverage) by establishing their own street railway in 1885. Due to the specificity of language in the Horse Railway's charter, however, no new horsecar lines could be established in the city, leading to the establishment of the Denver Electric & Cable Railway Company to skirt the city's charter. A franchise was then granted unto the new company for 50 years, with no specificity towards "sole and exclusive rights", but that did not stop a spun-off group of investors from appealing to the Denver City Council to actually flagrantly ignore the "exclusive" charter and establish their own horsecars (just in case the cable and electrics didn't work) under a third company, the Denver Railway Association (DRA). 

The Newborn Finds Its Roots

A shot of 15th Street in 1886, during the DT's time testing out
conduit pickup, which can be seen at lower right.
(Denver Public Library)

Both the Horse Railway and the Electric & Cable Railway found the move unpopular as the former felt spurned and the latter felt neutered, and both began accusing the DRA of trying to rig a monopoly. To combat these feelings of ill will, investors from all three companies agreed to formally reincorporate the Denver Railway Association in 1886 and become the Denver Tramway Company (DT). The first period of the DT were spent in unsure waters, as the company experimented with a couple types of propulsion systems. The first was in 1886, when they tried out an underground electric line similar to the under-street conduit system pioneer by George Francis Train (1829-1904) in London. Unfortunately, Denver wasn't all cobblestone streets at the time, and dirt and mud immediately filled up the conduit, leading it to be very expensive, complicated, and trouble-prone. A year later, in 1887, DT returned to using horsecars to make back their lost profits, but the DCR immediately filed a lawsuit citing franchise infringement. By the end of 1888, the DT had settled on using cable cars under the Hallidie system. The launch of DT's new cable car forced the DCR to reorganize itself as well, reorganizing as the Denver City Cable Railway in 1889.

Denver Tramway No. 214 sports its new trolley pole as it
works a service to West Denver, 1890s.
(Acrossthecreek)

The biggest competition-starter between the two companies eventually came in 1888, when inventor Frank J. Sprague launched the first electric streetcar line in Richmond, Virginia. Seeing how cheap it was to run the wires and the trolleys, the Tramway was the first to leap into the new revolution, constructing an electric streetcar line into South Denver and setting up a subsidiary (the South Denver Cable Railway) to operate it. By 1893, all of the Tramway's cable trackage was converted to electricity (with the gauge remaining the same, similar to the Los Angeles Railway), with the DT buying up neighboring companies in nearby Berkeley and Highland to extend their reach. This eventually formed the Denver Consolidated Tramway Company (DCT, or just the DT) in 1893, formed out of the Denver Tramway (which served Denver proper) and the Metropolitan Railway Company (which served the outer suburbs).

A reconstructed map of Denver's streetcar routes by 1890.
A more legible version can be found here.
(Denver urbanism)

Come On, Let's Play Monopoly

President T.R. disapproves of
monopolistic business practices.
(Public Domain)

That same year, during the intense Economic Panic and industrial stagnation, the DCR fell into receivership and were looking for buyers. Seeing this gilded opportunity, the DT ingratiated itself well within local politics through kickbacks and lobbying to seek a new franchise, one that the DCR "couldn't compete with" to ensure a guaranteed merger. Hilariously, and flagrantly flying in the face of everything future-President Theodore Roosevelt stood for, DT forcefully merged with the reorganized DCR (then the "Denver City Cable RailROAD) and gave itself its own "sole exclusive right and privilege" to run electric and cable cars well within Denver. To everyone but DT and its cronies, the Tramway was now a monopoly, with its stock sheets even bragging that its franchise was "without limit to time and therefore perpetual". Those who did recognize the monopoly filed a lawsuit the same year as the DCT came into being, citing in the Colorado Supreme Court that a "perpetual franchise" was inherently unconstitutional. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed and found the Tramway unconstitutional, but due to DT's political might, this decision was later reversed.

Thomas S. McMurray, who don't take no 
sh*t from private transit companies.
(Denver Public Library)

You'd think this would be the time where a lone politician would stand up and bring down the mighty monopoly in a grand and noble public gesture, and you'd be kind of right. Up until now (1895), Denver Tramway had a set share of profits going back to the city, but as the coffers filled and ridership increased, citizens felt like the public service wasn't putting enough back to justify their rising fares (up to five cents, or $0.25 in 2019). Enter Thomas S. McMurry (1855-1916), a mayoral candidate who called for "separation of transit and government" and for Denver Tramway to pay back their fair share. When the transit company attempted to bribe McMurry as a peace offering pending his reelection, McMurry refused and immediately lost the 1899 election to a transit-friendly patsy named Henry V. Johnson. After this, Denver Tramway was not required to give back any amount of money to the city and were allowed to keep 100% of its profits. 

The Denver Tramway's interurban loop terminal at 15th
and Arapahoe, with a Type 2 streetcar bound for Golden.
(Kevin Pharris)

As the twentieth century rolled around, however, the ridership was beginning to turn on them. Despite claims of "perpetuity", the Tramway's franchise was actually up for renewal and mounting popular pressure called for the Tramway to take a hike and bring in much fairer and cheaper public transit. The Tramway responded by having a new franchise written up that not only gave the company even more financial leeway, but also fixed the rates at 5 cents (or 25 cents in 2019) to better appease the public and pledged that the Tramway would "contribute 50% of all maintenance costs for roads on which it had a two-way line". While this nominal franchise helped the Tramway find itself within the citizens' tolerant graces once again, the company was still losing money into the 1910s to jitney buses and increasing automobile traffic. (This is also the time the Denver Tramway bought and electrified the Denver & Interurban Railway, which they did in 1909. Denver Tramway also built the Denver & Northwestern in 1903 to bring coal to its powerplants.) Faced with the ever-looming possibility of having to raise their fares by two cents, the Tramway spent its best year (1917, with 62 million trips logged) petitioning the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CO-PUC) to raise their fares. This, obviously, went down well with the public.

  

Amalgamated Agitation

Mayor Dewey C. Bailey's portrait, 1919-1923.
The public library claims he is balding.
(Denver Public Library)

Immediately after Denver Tramway's plans to raise their fares were made known, the City of Denver sued the Tramway and demanded it honor the original franchise. Having a very anti-private company mayor in Dewey C. Bailey (1860-1937) also helped unite people against the Tramway, as one of his campaign planks was restoring the 5-cent fare. The company brass were able to secure their fare increase from CO-PUC but, in an effort to shoot themselves in the foot, decided that their bargaining chip to the city would be to cut employee pay and institute swift layoffs if the city did not honor the PUC's decision. Around the same time, the Local 746 of the Amalgamated Association of Street & Electric Railway Employees of America (AASERE, now the Amalgamated Transit Union) was formed to represent Denver Streetcar workers in June 1918. The union had successfully petitioned the War Labor Board during WWI to eliminate wartime restrictions and give them an eight-hour workweek with a wage hike. Tramway's actions had violated the precedents the Local 746 put into place, and in response to the threatened layoffs and wage cuts, struck for four days in July 1919. This strike, unfortunately, failed to make an impression on the company.

"Black Jack" Jerome at right, with family.
(eKathimerni.com)

By the next year, though the Treaty of Versailles was passed to formally end World War I, the citizens of Denver were itching for a new war. Denver Tramway again put out a general threat to cut wages further (to the point of just... not paying people?) unless the City of Denver at least acquiesced to a fare increase. The people refused to budge and instead voted to strike by August 1 if Denver Tramway didn't back down. In response to this threat of possible violence, the company quickly hired legendary California strikebreaker John "Black Jack" Jerome (1889-1953) and his crew as a response. Jerome was a Greek Immigrant known for his brutal suppression of strikes in San Francisco and his work in Denver was no different. August 1st came and went, and by August 3rd, Jerome and crew had arrived in Denver, armed to the teeth. 

A Denver Tramway car and its trailers are felled by strikers
during the actions of August 5, 1920.
(Colfax History)

By then, all cars had ground to a halt and left the city in a standstill, and none of Jerome's crew were "scab" motormen or conductors, instead being college students, guards, detectives, and reformed criminals. Though Mayor Bailey was on the side of the people, he also took a precaution to arm the strikebreakers as city deputies just in case violence did strike. And strike it did, as on August 4, Jerome himself took to the controls to defy the strikers, piloting a car out of the barn at Fourteenth and Arapahoe. The car was later rolled over by a mob, leading Jerome and crew to clash with union strikers. The war only intensified the next day, as on the afternoon of August 5, 1920, a parade of demonstrators chased two "scab" streetcars heading back to the barn. The chase led to several organized mobs that began targeting not only Jerome and his crew, but also the headquarters of Denver Tramway, the anti-union Denver Post, and the Union Station. Two bystanders were killed that night and thirty-three were injured. 

Strikers mob a scab streetcar and injure one of the men inside.
The man was later taken away by an ambulance,
the trolley heavily damaged.
(Denver Public Library)

At 1 AM, August 6, Mayor Bailey found that the city's police overwhelmed and immediately called for a citizen's volunteer militia to take over that night, leading to five more deaths and twenty-five wounded at the East Division carbarn when armed strikebreakers fired into the crowd. When the smoke had cleared, Mayor Bailey and Colorado Governor Oliver Shroup (1869-1940) appealed for federal assistance, leading to martial law being declared under Col. C.C. Ballou from nearby Fort Logan. Under martial law, the hostilities ended almost immediately. His superior, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood, later stated that arming Jerome's strikebreakers was a "colossal blunder". Denver Tramway filed for bankruptcy shortly after due to the losses in infrastructure, equipment, and manpower, while the Local 746 was also dissolved for the next thirteen years. Those seven deaths were later found to be just all bystanders, with strikers suffering various injuries. 

Notable Streetcars

A Denver City Cable Railway car bound for "Manhattan Beach" and "Cooper Lake" in 1895.
Note the locomotive headlight used for nighttime illumination.
(W.A. White)

The "Spliced" car of Woeber and Denver Tramway.
(Mid-Continent Railway Museum)

Due to the Denver Tramway dating back to the start of the electric streetcar, most of their fleet were made up of either converted horsecars or diminutive four-wheel electric cars. Most of these were not built by J.G. Brill of Philadelphia, as was common at the time, but by the Woeber Brothers Carriage Works of Denver, Colorado, who built their first cars for the Denver City Railway Company's Broadway extension in 1884. Their switch from horse carriages to railway cars came at the behest of the DCR's general manager, as other eastern carbuilders charged steeply to deliver their cars. As Denver grew and expanded, so did the Woeber Brothers, who quickly established a new five-acre manufacturing plant on Bannock Streets and West Colorado Avenue. Woeber Bros. continued to build cars well into 1913, even pioneering the "center entrance" car a full decade early with the 39-foot "Spliced Car", a combination of an enclosed six-window trolley car with a summer car on the other end. These cars featured a unique (for the period) center entrance made out of what would be their vestibules, and worked at late as 1920.

Type 1 No. 49 at 7th and Pennsylvania Streets in Denver, Halloween 1948.
(Wil Hata)

The "Type 1s" in original condition, painted a deep
red with yellow-cream window bands.
(Colorado Preservation Inc.)

After the turn of the century, Woeber constructed a standard class of center-entrance single-ended cars (dubbed the "Type 1") that were intended to form the backbone of the fleet. Over 250 were built between Woeber and Denver Tramway (who took over after Woeber focused primarily on automobiles in 1920) and were pretty much the same through the end of their production in 1925. They were 39 feet long and featured a front and center door, vaguely resembling a Peter Witt Streetcar, with a flat Birney-esque front end and a rounded end similar to the aforementioned Peter Witt. They ran on 3'6" gauge (or "Cape" gauge) track all of their lives and were all painted a solid yellow color with tan roofs, almost resembling the "Yellow Cars" of the Los Angeles Railway. All but a few of these cars were retired by 1950 due to age and the Tramway giving up its streetcars, and most that remained after were sold for as little as $100 ($1100 today) to private buyers who found new uses for them like cabins and building additions. 

Those that didn't find buyers, like Car No. 20 here, were burned and scrapped.
This one was gone in 1920, note the melted/bent trolley pole.
(Otto Perry, Denver Public Library)

Back on Track with Trackless Trolleys

Timken Roller Bearings go against their former customer as they advertise their
axles and bearings in new Denver-bound GM buses. More legible version here.
(Unknown Author)

A Denver Tramway motor coach in 1941, by Twin Coach,
at the Motor Coach Division building.
(History Colorado)

The Denver Tramway emerged from its violent bankruptcy in 1924, with the added bonus of a bankruptcy court allowing them to raise fares in order to recoup their losses. Unfortunately, by that time, the damage to their public image was done. Years of ill will and monopolistic greed had taken a toll on the Tramway, and many Denverites were now turning to their cars that privatized public transit. The same year they emerged from bankruptcy, the Denver Tramway began operating a bus service between Englewood and Fort Logan, with additional planning paving the way for the switch from streetcars to gasoline and trolley buses. It was imagined that, through this plan, Denver Tramway could let go of its obligation to maintain the streets it served and, thus, only spend their maintenance bill on their buses. Over the 1920s and 1930s, streetcar use backslid and not even the artificial gasoline rationing of WWII did anything to improve the company's finances. By 1949, despite an enormous roster consisting of 131 streetcars, 138 trolley coaches, and 116 gasoline buses, Denver Tramway knew its time was up.

A route map of the Denver Tramway in 1933, which can be read better here.
(Daniel-Smith Company, Denver Public Library)

A Denver Tramway trolleybus glides past Denver City Hall.
(Denver Trolley) 

The last streetcar in Denver was run on July 3, 1950, by which point only 64 trolley cars remained on the roster. The trolley wires were reused for the trolley bus fleet, while the rails were summarily pulled up and repaved over. After five years, the trolley buses too were retired and Denver Tramway stuck to buses. And yet, through the suburban and freeway booms of the 1950s, and the growing smog of the 1960s, the Denver Tramway remained after all of its rivals and contemporaries had bit the dust. But why? By 1970, Denver had more cars per capita than the rest of the US, even Los Angeles, and it was all owed to their shoddy public transit. Not much is known about who ran the Denver Tramway into the 1970s or how they managed to continue so under private ownership, but this period of independence had to end sometime. 

Rebuilt from the Ashes

Denver RTD's modern "A" Line speeds towards the airport.
(Streetsblog Denver)

After sponsoring the transit system for two years, the city of Denver created the Denver Metro Transit (DMT) to assume ownership and operation of the now-bankrupted and unused Denver Tramway. With the DMT being created in Denver, a lot of suburban communities using the Tramway were shut out in the process, which led to the DMT nearly bankrupting itself by 1973. In July 1974, a compromise was passed that combined DMT into the new Regional Transportation District (RTD), which continues municipal public transit systems in eight of the twelve counties in the Denver-Boulder area. It took another twenty years for light rail to return to Denver's good graces with the opening of the RTD "D" Line in 1994, serving the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area. Today, Denver runs twelve different RTD light and commuter rail lines in three fare zones all around the city, including to Denver Airport, and it seems the bad taste of the Tramway has finally faded with time.

The exterior of the REI flagship store.
(REI)

The interior of REI's flagship store, formerly the Denver Tramway powerhouse.
Note the indoor climbing rock.
(Indoor Walls)

Denver Tramway No. 40, a horsecar originally built by Laclede
of St. Louis in 1886, later a cable car. It was later used as a tool shed
instead of being burned like the other cable cars.
(The Cable Car Guy)

As for any remnants of the original Denver Tramway, several trolley buses have found their way into museums, most notably at the Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway Museum in Colorado Springs. The original powerhouse of the Denver Tramway Company, originally built between 1901 and 1904, still survives as outdoor retail chain REI's Denver flagship store after first functioning as an International Harvester warehouse, then being owned by the Forney Transportation Museum until 1998. As for the trolley car fleet, only two are known to survive. One, Woeburn Type 1 No. 04, was originally sold as a cabin near Rollinsville before being stored at the Forney Museum (which also owns original horsecar No. 40). In 2000, it was donated to the Denver Rail Heritage Society and eventually found its way to the city of Arvada, a former Denver Tramway town, who intends to display the trolley outside of their "G" Line station in "Olde Town". The car is currently in very poor condition and awaiting restoration. The other car, No. 54, resides in a former Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant on 18th and Lawrence street, which was the former DCR powerhouse. It, unlike No. 04, is in better preserved condition.

Former Denver Tramway No. 54 at the Old Spaghetti Factory, who seem
to make it their gimmick to have some historic streetcar inside every location.
(O. Anderson, Frank Hicks)

  

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included "The Time of the Trolley" by William D. Middleton, "The history of the government of Denver with special reference to its relations with public service corporations" by Clyde Lyndon King, the Colorado Encyclopedia's page on the 1920 Tramway strike, the Mid-Continent Railway's page on the Woeber Bros. Carriage Company, a Westword article from April 10, 2017, detailing the history of Car No. 04, and the photo credits listed in each caption. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Thursday, I prepare a special report on the socioeconomic effects and racial demographics of LA streetcars, as it's for a creative project I'm doing for my "Literary Los Angeles" class. 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!