Check out these Weight loss images:
streetcar
Image by MoDOT Photos
Caption:
A Nobles Brothers street car, No. 51, rolls by the Eakle Building on Polk Street during the early years of Amarillo public transportation system in this undated Amarillo Globe-News file photograph.
Amarillo was growing faster than a wildfire in all the wide open plains of west Texas. Homes, businesses and new neighborhoods were springing across the city along with the families and people involved. By 1905, the need for a public transportation system was apparent.
City official granted a street car franchise to an out-of-town firm in 1905 to establish Amarillo first transportation system but the first project never got any further than the paperwork stage with the original plans falling apart. The same thing happened again with a second company in 1906 and still Amarillo had no public transportation.
During this time, two brothers, H.A. and M.C. Nobles, who conducted business as Nobles Brothers, were developing a plot of land for the Glenwood Addition east of Llano Cemetery. They requested the city’s permission to build a street car system to their property, linking Glenwood with the downtown district. Since the first two attempts had failed miserably, city official quickly granted a street car franchise to the Nobles Brothers.
A former railroad section foreman from Claude, J.E. Richey, was hired and immediately began building tracks for Amarillo’s first street car system in the fall of 1907. The first tracks were laid from 17th and S. Polk to 9th and N. Polk Street. Two more branches were added off the main Polk Street line with a car barn and power station being built near Polk and N. 4th.
Despite rains, heavy snow and sticky, ankle deep mud all the tracks and buildings were completed in time for a mid-afternoon, New Year Day 1908, celebration with free rides offered for all Amarillo in the five new street cars.
With people packed into the street car like sardines, cheering and waving out the windows, Amarillo’s first street car slowly pulled away from 17th and S. Polk heading north toward the business center. The heavily loaded car started moving with happy passengers still cheering and yelling as the car slowed then abruptly came to a halt. The car’s weight on the snow and rain soaked roadbeds caused the tracks to sink. The car was grounded, stuck in the mud.
Still, fun and laughter was had by all in attendance for this historical event. Everyone piled out of the stuck street car into the mud as the men and boys began pushing the empty car to higher ground. More railroad ties were shoved under the sinking tracks and before dark everyone had gotten their free ride on the new street cars. By February of 1908, J.E. Richey had fixed all the track problems and a regular schedule was being maintained over the entire street car system. Amarillo’s first public transportation system was up and running, ushering in a new era of growth for Amarillo.
Amarillo’s mass transit system continued to expand in the next few years, adding new tracks, routes and schedules. Plus, a second company, the Amarillo Traction Company, started operating routes outside the city limits. Despite all the expansion and growth of Amarillo, the Nobles Brothers were operating the street cars system at a loss. In 1917 Nobles Brothers sold their street car enterprise to a New York based company and with three years the original street car company ceased operations.
Following World War I, Amarillo’s public transportation system had fallen into disrepair and the remaining companies were operating at a loss of more than ,000 a year. By 1925 Amarillo’s street cars and trolleys were non-existent. Replaced with modern buses. The Amarillo Traction Company had switched to buses and was still operating the same routes throughout Amarillo. Two Oklahoma City businessmen, brothers Frank and Joe Doerfler began operating a bus service, doing all the driving and bus maintenance themselves. Their bus schedule operated 17-hours a days, covered the majority of Amarillo and cost only 10-cents a ride.
Although Amarillo’s invol
