Streetcars, trolleys once ruled the streets of S.L.

Plans recently announced to seek funding for a streetcar line to run from the TRAX station at 2100 South east to Sugar House hark back to the day when streetcars and trolleys ruled many of Salt Lake City's streets.

Rail tracks for streetcars lined some of Salt Lake City's main thoroughfares from 1872 until the last tracks were removed after the end of World War II.

"In their heyday, more than 100 miles of track criss-crossed the city, and a spider web of lines to kept cars moving was woven overhead," according to a story by Twila Van Leer in the Feb. 14, 1996, Deseret News.

Photos of Salt Lake City streetcars dating back to the 1873 horse-drawn trolleys have appeared over the years in the Deseret News. Photo researcher Ron Fox has found many of these photos, and they can be seen online at deseretnews.com.

Those earliest streetcars were part of the Salt Lake Railroad Company, organized in February of 1872 by then-LDS Church leader Brigham Young and a group of investors. The first mule car was drawn along the streets of Salt Lake City on July 2, 1872, with Young inviting eager bystanders, many of them children, to join the throng until the cars were bulging.

Young was forced out of his position a few years later by federal legislation, but the business thrived. Photos show a relatively small cart drawn by two rat mules imported from Missouri, a sometimes problematic power source.

"Although many might have been tempted, only the driver had authority to use abusive language or physically prod one of the animals, which occasionally came to a halt and refused to move again. They kept a schedule, one frustrated patron complained, as 'correctly as a timepiece would without a dial,' " the 1996 story recounts.

At times, progress was slow, and younger men were reported to have said, "If I have time, I'll take the streetcar. If not, I'll walk."

A tourist brochure for Union Pacific Railroad passengers stopping over in Salt Lake in the 1870s encouraged visitors to take the streetcars to their northernmost point, the bathhouse at Warm Springs, now the site of a city park.

"Having selected a stopping place, the next thing is a visit to the warm sulphur springs, for a bath. The streetcars, running by nearly all hotels, will take you there," reads the brochure.

When electricity replaced the rat mule, Salt Lake City was one of the first cities to take advantage of new technology.