April 23, 2024 • 52 mins
All aboard as we delve into Maryland's captivating trolley history at the Boonsboro Trolley Station Museum. Uncover how these transport marvels transformed rural connections, surprising even in funeral processions. With Reuben Moss leading the way, we unravel the intricate impact of trolleys on local trade, education, and the agricultural economy.
💡 Boonesboro's Trolley Tales: Cantaloupes, Power Plants, and Electric Parks! 🎡
This episode delves into the history of Boonesboro, famed for its juicy cantaloupes and bustling trolley system—one of the nation's largest rural-urban networks. Experience the thrill of riding these trolleys and discover the Frederick Company's entrepreneurial zeal as it powered beyond transportation, electrifying rural Maryland with power plants and vibrant electric parks that became community hubs of leisure and excitement.
🎶 Trolley's Last Stand: From Wheels to Wisdom! 📚
Discover the fate of the final four trolleys, some transformed into vibrant libraries! Finally, we share the story of a Washington D.C. DJ who had a dual passion for Beatles tunes and trolley lore, whose efforts have preserved the echoes of the trolley bells in a museum that stands as a testament to this bygone but never-dimming era of transportation's enchanting past.
The Hagerstown & Frederick Railway Historical Society
Oral History Project
This Society is collecting visual and audio records of individuals with stories of the trolley line. These records are added to the Society's archives where they can be used for education and research. If you have a story you would like to share, reach out to Reuben at reuben@hrhs.org or write to:
H&FRHS Inc.
P.O. Box 1314
Frederick, MD 21702
www.hfrhs.org/oralhistory
🔗 Episode Links
National Road Museum: NationalRDFoundation.org
Hagerstown & Frederick Railway Historical Society: https://hfrhs.orgÂ
Curator's Choice - A podcast for history nerds and museum lovers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ayla Sparks (00:03):
Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's Choice, a
podcast for history nerds andmuseum lovers.
From ancient relics to modernmarvels, each episode of this
show features a new museum and acurator's choice of some
amazing artifacts housed there.
These guardians of history willshare insights, anecdotes and
(00:23):
the often untold stories thatbreathe life into the artifacts
they protect.
Thanks for tuning in to thisMighty Oak Media production and
enjoy the show.
So trolleys I'm not going tolie.
Whenever I think of trolley, Iimmediately just think of San
Francisco.
No idea that trolleys were evenon this side of the country.
And wow, they were incrediblehere.
Rueben Moss (00:46):
Trolleys were a big deal nationwide, well,
worldwide actually.
You do think of San Franciscoand a lot of people think of the
cable cars, which aretechnically not trolleys.
You're right, that's exactlywhat I think of.
Now, san Francisco does havetrolleys.
They're along the wharf, alongthe waterline.
They're along the wharf, alongthe water line, but cable cars,
which is what most people thinkof, actually run by a constantly
(01:08):
moving metal cable under thestreet and they just grab onto
it.
That's why they all go the samespeed.
Trolleys get their name fromthe overhead pole.
There's a single pole thelittle arm that reaches out,
yeah.
They're a wheel or a carbonslider at the end that rubs
against a copper wire and thatwire provides electricity.
(01:30):
Different trolleys were alittle bit different but on
average 550 to 650 volts of DCpower it's a lot of electricity
Provides the electricity tooperate motors in the wheels and
each trolley can beindividually controlled.
It's basically an extensioncord and the same thing.
That eventually evolved intolarger, mainline high-speed
(01:52):
electric trains.
We have today Some of the sametechnology.
It was developed in Europe earlyin the railroad era, 1830s.
They were already experimentingwith electric rail cars.
Nothing really happened.
There were a couplesemi-successful experiments over
the years, but it was 1888.
A gentleman named Frank Sprague,who had worked for Thomas
(02:14):
Edison, got his own ideas,studied other inventors in the
world, especially from Europe,who were also experimenting with
electricity, came up with hisown ideas and designs for
electric motors.
He set up the first successfulelectric trolley system in
Richmond, virginia, in the US,in the US, in Richmond, in
Richmond.
Now there was one in theBaltimore area that was already
(02:37):
running, but it was kind of anexperimental thing still and it
wasn't self-propelled.
It had a little engine that ranon the electricity that pulled
a horse wagon.
So a lot of towns hadhorse-drawn wagons that were
running on rails but notself-propelled, so it was sort
of an electric horse wagon atthe time.
So Frank Sprague's designsactually incorporated it all
(02:57):
into one vehicle, and not onlydid it work well, but it also
went up hills, and that's howthe local system came about.
So by the time local peoplewere getting involved, there
were hundreds of trolley linesacross the country.
Ayla Sparks (03:13):
So people were very familiar with trolleys.
Rueben Moss (03:14):
People were very familiar with trolleys.
The trolley systems were big,were small and I should point
out there are two types oftrolley system and it comes into
play with some of thetechnicalities here.
There are streetcar systems,which are usually smaller,
lighter, run in the city streets, maybe connect to some suburbs.
(03:37):
They were the ones that lastedthe longest, honestly, and those
are mostly for people.
Those are mostly for people.
Sometimes they'd have freight.
Occasionally in cities they'deven have funeral cars that were
just for carrying funeralparties with the casket and
everything Very, veryinteresting.
Ayla Sparks (03:53):
That is crazy.
Rueben Moss (03:55):
Were they like all black.
They came in different colors Idon't think I've seen a color
photo but some of them wouldhave, like the door on the side
to slide the casket in,sometimes be glass, like a wagon
hearse would be a glass or theback of a modern hearse so you
could see the casket go by andthen the rest of the trolley was
seating for the funeral partyand they just go straight to the
(04:17):
cemetery.
The local system didn't havethat but they did pass a couple
cemeteries so it's possible theydid have rate for bodies.
Ayla Sparks (04:26):
Oh my gosh, this is crazy.
Rueben Moss (04:33):
Then there's also inner urban lines, and inner
urban lines were trolley systemsdesigned to connect towns to
other towns, and that's what wehad here in Central Maryland was
an inner urban system that alsoran streetcars, and so that's
the definitive point with it.
This was a major interurbanline for its type.
It was a rural interurban, oneof the largest rural interurban
systems in the country and thelast in the mid-Atlantic to
(04:56):
operate a schedule.
Other interurban lines a lot ofpeople think of, if they're
familiar with trolleys, would bethings like the lines around
Chicago or New York, where it'sbig, high-speed electric
trolleys that are later replacedby elevated trains or
high-speed trains or justretired altogether.
But those had hundreds ofmillions of passengers and were
(05:20):
constantly running multipleunits that were connected
together.
This was a single trolleyrunning through farmland from
town to town, which was a lot ofthose.
They popped up everywhere.
There wasn't already railroadservice and a lot of them only
lasted a few years.
Ayla Sparks (05:36):
And they were short , right, they didn't go very far
.
Rueben Moss (05:39):
Some of them went from one town to another,
connected two or three towns.
Here in Central Maryland at itspeak, over two dozen
communities were connected bythis trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (05:48):
Well, and what's really interesting, you were
telling me in the museum itself,the way that Lowell-Boonesboro
got their trolley line startedis a pretty cool story.
Rueben Moss (05:59):
So there were two different companies here there
was the Fredericton MiddletownRailway Company and there was
the Hdletown Railway Company andthere was the Hagerstown
Railway.
Ayla Sparks (06:07):
And how?
For people who aren't familiarwith Maryland, how far away are
these two towns?
Rueben Moss (06:10):
They're like maybe 25 miles.
Ayla Sparks (06:12):
Roughly 20 to 30 miles.
Rueben Moss (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, today you can drive the difference in
about half hour to 40 minutes.
It's not too far away, but atthe time it was really hard to
get from town to town.
The National Road was reallythe only way to get to a lot of
these communities and it hadfallen into disrepair.
So for the people of Middletownwhose livelihood depended on
(06:36):
the National Road they were afarm community, they had been a
stagecoach location, so they haddepended on people coming to
town, stopping tradingstagecoaches, getting a bite to
eat, staying the night inbetween their stagecoaches on
their trip.
The decline of the road becauseof railroads and, to a lesser
point, canals, meant that thetown's economy was starting to
(07:00):
struggle and the farmers wereseeing people in other
communities along railroads gettheir goods transported to the
bigger cities and making moremoney, while the people in
Middletown were looking atseveral hours just to go the six
miles from their town to thecity of Frederick just because
the road was in bad shape andthey had to go over a mountain.
(07:20):
So people got together, starteda company, tried to get
investors and couldn't getanybody involved from outside of
town, and so the company spentthree years just selling stock
to local businessmen, farmers,local families and eventually
had enough money to get somesecondhand supplies and borrow
some equipment and startbuilding in 1896.
(07:43):
So they started in 1893 withtheir fundraising and began
construction in 1896 and finallygot something running in the
middle late August in that yearto the top of the mountain.
Ayla Sparks (07:55):
And where were they trying to get to?
To Middletown.
Well, so, from where, though?
From Frederick, from?
Rueben Moss (08:00):
the city.
Ayla Sparks (08:00):
So they were trying to take it from Middletown to
Frederick to sell all the goodsTo sell their goods in Frederick
or connect with the railroadsthat were already in Frederick.
Rueben Moss (08:07):
So there were a lot of options.
Once you got to the city, youhad a lot of options on where
you could sell your goods,either locally or go to
Baltimore or go to basically anyother city in the country.
You couldn't do that if youcouldn't get over the mountain
before the goods spoiled.
So the construction began.
Instead of starting inMiddletown, where the money came
(08:28):
from, they started in Frederick, where the city wasn't all that
interested but was willing toallow it to get built, and the
construction finally opened theline to Braddock Heights, which
was the top of the mountain.
There was no town, nothing, upthere.
It wasn't even called BraddockHeights at the time, it was just
the top of Catoctin Mountain,and the opening day of service
(08:51):
just to the top of the mountainfor picnics was packed.
People in Frederick wanted toget to the top of the mountain.
A little while later there was aextension to the county
fairgrounds because the countyfair took place the next month
and 16,000 tickets were sold andthey only owned three trolleys
at the time.
That's a little bit of adiscrepancy.
(09:13):
Yes, 16,000 tickets were soldto get people to the fair and it
was a four-day event and howmany people can normally fit on
a trolley?
About 40 at a time for thetrolleys they had.
So they did not have nearlyenough.
They did not have.
They were able to do it, but itwas a lot of work and those
trolleys really were put to thetest.
It wasn't until October of thatyear that Middletown was
(09:33):
finally reached and they finallybuilt a station outside of town
at the top of a hill wherewomen complained that they
couldn't go into the city inhigh heels because they had to
climb this really steep hill toget to the station.
So they eventually built a newstation closer to town and
people were happy.
Ayla Sparks (09:50):
Because anyone who would have been coming from
Frederick out here, they wouldbe coming out here for more of
like a good time, enjoyment,pleasure area yeah, out to the
country, rather than the goodsfrom Middletown going to
Frederick.
So you're kind of having tocomply or meet the conveniences
of two different kinds of people.
Rueben Moss (10:05):
Yes, exactly, and anybody going from Middletown to
Frederick.
They were going into the bigcity.
They wanted to be dressed up,they were going for shopping.
They didn't want to have tohave a whole lot of strain to
carry things back from theirshopping trip.
But the main reason for theline from Middletown to
Frederick was freight.
So one of the three trolleysthey purchased was able to pull
little wagons over the mountainand the company claimed to be
(10:28):
the first trolley company in thecountry to pull freight over a
mountain with electric power.
Eventually you'd have bigrailroads pulling big freight
trains with massive electriclocomotives out west for a brief
time.
But this was a significantadvance.
But it's something that theyclaimed.
We've never been able to provefor sure that they were.
(10:50):
We're not the first to pullfreight, but they were possibly
the first to pull freight over amountain with electric power.
But at the same time all thatwas happening in Hagerstown.
Two investors from Harrisburg,pennsylvania, saw Hagerstown as
a way to make money.
They had a lot of friends witha lot of money.
They got a lot of moneytogether and they built this
state-of-the-art streetcar line.
(11:11):
It was an interurban but theyconsidered it streetcar between
Hagerstown and the nearbycommunity of Williamsport along
the Potomac River which had alot of industry growing.
And when was this?
This was at the same time, 1896.
So they started theirfundraising after Frederick
began or the Middletown linebegan construction.
They started service betweenHagerstown and Williamsport two
(11:33):
weeks before Frederick began, sothey started after they had
enough money to finish first.
They were successful.
They had a lot of investment.
They started expandingimmediately.
By 1902, they had reachedBoonesboro here and the idea was
actually to reach thebattlefield at Antietam,
sharpsburg, because thatbattlefields were beginning to
(11:54):
become a tourist destination.
At the time it already was.
Some of the steam railroads inthe area already had promoted
tourism.
I believe it was the Norfolkand Western Railroad had built a
station not far from Sharpsburgwhere the battlefield is, and
they had actually built asidewalk from their station into
the battlefield where the towndidn't really have a sidewalk
(12:15):
except for in town, just becausethey had so many tourists
coming.
So they thought that it wasgoing to be extended all the way
out there.
We don't really know why theystopped here in Boonesboro and
never continued.
They had started surveying andgrading and then just stopped.
But Boonesboro had farm goods.
We had cantaloupes andraspberries and peaches, which
were the main exports from town.
(12:36):
There were a lot of stores herein Boonesboro and so a lot of
goods would come in by trolleyas well.
They transported the mail herefrom Hagerstown, and a lot of
people coming into town to goshopping or leaving Boonesboro
to go into Hagerstown to go tothe theaters or the department
stores became main fares for thetrolley.
Ayla Sparks (12:56):
And apparently Boonesboro had some spectacular
melons.
Rueben Moss (13:00):
Yes, I have never seen any photographs showing
exactly how big, but thecantaloupes that were grown here
were said to be some of themost delicious cantaloupes ever
grown and could have been, insome cases, as large as a
basketball.
I can't substantiate that withany proof.
But they were very popular fromthe time they were very popular
(13:21):
, at least regionally, as one ofthe best cantaloupes in the
country.
But you won't see them now youwon't see them now.
I have been told by thedescendants of some of the
farmers that the original strainof seeds was lost years ago.
It's a shame.
They still grow cantaloupeshere and they are still
delicious cantaloupes, butthey're not quite the
(13:42):
world-class cantaloupes that youhear about from the past.
Ayla Sparks (13:46):
That's fantastic.
So you have Hagerstown kind ofmore for the theater and the
entertainment business.
You have Boonesboro.
That is really for trade.
Rueben Moss (13:53):
Agriculture trade, still passengers, there were
still things to do around here.
People were still coming hereon their way to Antietam.
You just have to take a horsethe rest of the way, or a
vehicle of some kind.
Ayla Sparks (14:06):
So after the success of both of these two
different trolley lines,eventually they merge.
Yes.
Rueben Moss (14:12):
So the Hagerstown Company wanted to expand.
They actually wanted to buy theFrederick Company.
The Frederick Company wasn'tinterested in selling, but they
there was a little town in themiddle between Hagerstown and
Frederick known as Myersvillethat had also built their own
trolley line to connect theMiddletown line.
They sold their track toHagerstown's company because
they wanted a connection toHagerstown.
(14:32):
And so the Hagerstown company,halfway between Hagerstown and
Boonesboro, started buildingover the mountain to connect to
Myersville and on December 1st1904, they were able to take the
first Hagerstown trolley allthe way to Frederick and became
the first through service Tooktwo hours where by horse and
(14:52):
wagon, unless you were taking astagecoach or a very fast horse,
you could spend a couple daystaking that trip by the road.
So massive improvement.
It was a massive improvement.
It was a little pricey so youdidn't have everybody using it.
A lot of people only used itfor special occasions.
But then you did, over time,have people who became commuters
(15:13):
because it was cost effectivefor them.
And one thing I didn't mentionat the museum it also became the
way for students to get toschools.
There were no school buses atthe time and so the schools
would subsidize or, if theyweren't subsidizing.
The parents could buy cheaptickets and you'd have one room
school houses in the area forearly grades.
(15:35):
But if you wanted to let yourchild go to high school or if
you were going to college, youhad to get to the city and so
you could get a student ticket,a student pass, to go into the
city to get further education.
And so it opened up theopportunity for families that
couldn't otherwise get to betterschooling because it wasn't
mandatory and it wasn't provided, but it was free or cheap if
(15:58):
they could get to it.
Suddenly you're opening upthese other opportunities for
poorer families that didn't owntheir own vehicle to allow
education for their children.
Ayla Sparks (16:08):
What would it have been like when you were actually
riding one of these trolleys?
Was it kind of like, I imagine,a train car today, where you
kind of purchase your ticket,you sit and ride and enjoy
yourself till you get there.
You can have snacks?
There must not have been aflight attendant walking up and
down the trolley line.
No flight attendant, no snacks.
Rueben Moss (16:24):
No snacks, you could bring your own snacks.
Okay, the trolleys were verymuch like a regular train car.
They would have a controller onboth ends so that the driver
would be on one end of the caror the other.
They'd come to a dead end sothe seats actually could change
direction.
They had little handles so inbetween trips the driver would
change what direction the seatswere facing.
(16:44):
Most of the trolleys in thearea had either a wood bench or
what was called vertan, which isa wicker-like varnish material.
It's not wicker but itresembles wicker.
It's varnished.
It would be padded seats madeof I think it might be bamboo
strips.
That was easy to clean, butonce it started breaking it
would start catching on yourclothes, so they had to keep it
(17:06):
well-maintained.
Usually it would get coatedwith a lot of lacquer to keep it
nice and varnished.
In later years they startedreplacing it with fake leather
material.
But you'd have a lot of rockingback and forth.
It was kind of loud.
You'd have that clickety-clackof regular railroad tracks you'd
expect.
Ayla Sparks (17:26):
How fast were they going?
Rueben Moss (17:27):
They'd go about 20 to 25 miles per hour on level
ground, which was actuallypretty fast at first, because
we're talking turn of thecentury, when cars had a speed
limit of eight miles per hour.
Ayla Sparks (17:37):
You feel like they're riding a roller coaster.
Rueben Moss (17:39):
Yes, which at the time steam trains were going a
lot faster by then.
But for trolley service thatwas pretty significant.
You're running on electricity,about 600 volts, as I said, and
it could take hills, which waswhy they went with trolleys,
because there are two mountainranges between Frederick and
Hagerstown, so they could handlethe steep climbs, they could
(18:00):
handle sharp turns.
The sharp turns were theloudest point because you get a
very loud squeal of the wheelsas you're making those turns,
especially in the city.
Ayla Sparks (18:09):
It's like when you're in a parking garage and
you're making a slow turn.
Rueben Moss (18:12):
Yes, yes, a little bit louder than that, though.
It can be almost deafening.
There are some places you cango ride trolleys around the
country and experience this foryourself.
But you'd either get a prepaidticket at a station there were
stations in some of the majorcommunities.
A lot of times you could get around trip if you were going to
go and come back.
If you were paying for a tripthat involved trading trolleys
(18:36):
at a point you would get atransfer.
So you get a little ticket thatyou could hand over.
That was good for the nextpassing trolley, so you couldn't
stop and enjoy yourself in alayover and then get on another
trolley.
You had to get on the next oneor else it would be void.
But if you didn't have aprepaid ticket, you could wave
down a trolley anywhere alongthe line and they'd stop and let
you in.
You'd just pay the cash farefor whatever the closest station
(18:58):
was.
Ayla Sparks (18:58):
Oh, wow.
So this is perfect, because ifyou were to be going to one of
these trolley stations, thathappens to be what the museum is
.
Rueben Moss (19:07):
Yes, so tell us a little bit about the museum.
This trolley stop, so what wehave the museum housed in is the
last surviving purpose-builttrolley station in Washington
County.
Ayla Sparks (19:19):
And it almost didn't exist.
Rueben Moss (19:21):
It almost didn't exist.
The town of Boonesboro acquiredthe property after a hardware
store that had been here closed.
It was part of a plan toredevelop the park that's just
behind the property and therewere a lot of derelict buildings
that were cleansed safe.
So they had contracted tobulldoze.
There's now a road that wasn'tthere that goes alongside the
(19:43):
station bulldoze.
There's now a road that wasn'tthere that goes alongside the
station, and the town manager atthe time had decided to get in
touch with a local historian tolook into whether any of the
buildings had historicalsignificance.
And gets a call from thehistorian one day saying yes,
one of the buildings is actuallythe last trolley station in the
county.
So, knowing that the bulldozerhad just been unloaded, the town
(20:05):
manager ran down the street andjumped in front of the
bulldozer when it was five to 10feet away from the building,
with his hands up waving forthem to stop.
Otherwise, if he had beenanother minute, the station
probably would have just beenknocked down and been beyond
saving.
Ayla Sparks (20:19):
And it sounds like a dramatization, but you
actually have people who are apart of the museum now, who
remember seeing him running downthe street.
Rueben Moss (20:27):
Yes, yes, so I have been guaranteed.
That's exactly how it happened,even though it sounds like
something out of a movie or a TVshow.
Ayla Sparks (20:33):
That's fantastic.
Yeah, so the museum?
Well, the trolley station issaved.
Rueben Moss (20:38):
It is saved and it was restored.
There was a architectural classin Baltimore that came out, did
a study on both buildings,actually the trolley station and
the main hardware storebuilding which will be the
National Road Museum right nextdoor.
They gave recommendations forarchitectural details, suggested
where an original wall that hadbeen removed should go back in
(20:59):
place and what it should bebuilt out of, and just to study
on the property itself.
And those recommendations wereused between 2005 and 2009 when
the station was restored.
Ayla Sparks (21:11):
And so now, whenever you come in, the first
thing that you encounter is thewaiting room.
That is quite small, I wouldsay so cozy, I guess would be a
preferential term.
Rueben Moss (21:21):
Well, it is very small.
It would have had benches.
It would have had a ticket desk.
We've represented as best as wecan right now what it would
have looked like.
Inside we have a stove.
It's a little bit larger thanthe stove that would have been
in there.
It was probably a potbellystove originally, but we have a
relatively locally cast stove inthere to represent the only
(21:43):
heat the building would have hadat the time.
But it was an improvement overwhat people had.
We believe the building wasbuilt around 1910.
That was in response to a lotof complaints from people who
even went in the newspaperlocally that passengers stated
that they were suffering fromhaving the floor as a platform
or the ground as a platform andthe sky as a roof.
(22:04):
So if you were waiting for thetrolley you had to hide in one
of the local businesses if itwas raining.
The office was in an oldfactory that was nearby but not
where the actual stop was.
Ayla Sparks (22:19):
So you could get a ticket here but you didn't have
anywhere to wait for the trolley.
Well, it makes sense for thetown itself to have more of a
station, because then you canalso kind of increase the amount
of work, well, the amount ofcommerce happening there.
Rueben Moss (22:27):
Yes, so the station has the little waiting room in
the corner, and the rest of thebuilding was used to store
freight in between transportingbetween vehicles, wagons or
trucks and the trolleys.
The trolleys actually came tothe front of the building, while
vehicles could pull up to theside and unload goods or load
goods between the building.
Ayla Sparks (22:48):
And underground.
In front you still have some ofthe original rail lines.
Rueben Moss (22:51):
Yes, the freight siding part of the freight
siding is still in place underthe front grass.
Eventually we hope to expose itso people can actually see that
original rail.
But we will have arepresentation of the passenger
platform track that was removedwhen it was retired sometime
soon, hopefully within the nextyear.
Ayla Sparks (23:11):
So within the timeline of having these two
companies begin and then kind ofmerge and then merge into one
gigantically long trolley line,when does the station come into
play?
Rueben Moss (23:22):
This station comes in right before the merger.
So this would have still been aproduct of the Hagerstown
Railway Company, which was stillquite a large company, but it
was accruing debts at that point.
So they were trying to expand,trying to improve.
At the same time.
This building was built thoughthe Frederick Company, the
Frederick of Middletown, underthe management of a man named
(23:43):
Emery Koblentz.
The Frederick of Middletownunder the management of a man
named Emery Koblentz, who was aMiddletown area banker and
businessman involved in a lot ofother ventures.
He had become president of thecompany in 1905.
He took the company and startedinvesting in a lot of
infrastructure.
So they built a new FrederickTerminal Station, new offices,
new trolley maintenance building, replaced a lot of bridges and
(24:05):
bought a steam railroad thatwent from Frederick to Thurmont
and converted that to electric,which over doubled the size of
their system and connected themwith a Baltimore to Cumberland
railroad line.
So he was responsible for a lotof expansion and the company
actually got renamed to theFrederick Railroad and he
started buying power companiesin the area, started selling
(24:27):
power to communities andexpanding the power holdings of
the company.
Since they were already runningthe trolleys off of electrical
power, it just made sense tostart selling their excess
electrical power to people andexpanding that service and
making more money that way.
Ayla Sparks (24:43):
So were they actually generating power that
they then used for the trolley,or the trolley used itself
generated power?
Rueben Moss (24:49):
They generated power.
So trolley companies wouldstart coal power plants.
The Hagerstown Company builttheir first one in Williamsport.
Two years later they had tobuild a bigger one outside of
Hagerstown and the FrederickCompany bought power from an
existing gas and power companythat was very small in Frederick
before two years later buildingtheir own power plant near
(25:10):
Middletown and then they boughtthe one that had been providing
power to them.
Ayla Sparks (25:15):
But the trolleys didn't take that much power, so
they had excess power.
Rueben Moss (25:17):
They had excess power, they had to generate AC
power and transmit that, becauseAC power, which is what we're
used to using today in our homes, that can be sent over long
distances without really losingenergy.
But the trolleys ran on DC powerwhich after a while it starts
to lose its energy.
So they couldn't go more thanabout a mile before they had to
(25:38):
get an influx of fresh power.
So they would build a powersubstation every two miles and
run the power poles along thetrolley line.
And every two miles at thesesubstations the AC electric
which was generated in largeamounts was converted to DC
power to run the trolleys.
And then they had all thatextra AC and DC power they could
(25:59):
work with.
So they started wiring nearbyhouses, started running new
power lines to nearbycommunities and farms.
I like to point out that in theMidwest and some of the Western
communities there were areaswhere you didn't see electricity
until the 1950s because itdidn't make sense for a power
(26:19):
company to run all those wiresfor a small town.
But where there was a trolleyline you always have the
opportunity for electricity andfarmers here in our area before
1900 could have upgraded toelectric motors if they wanted
to for water pumps and electriclighting.
Ayla Sparks (26:35):
Where there's a trolley, there's a way.
Where there's a trolley,there's a way.
So then they started selling.
The trolley companies startedselling electric things for
houses.
Rueben Moss (26:45):
Yes, they started appliance stores.
They started deliveringcatalogs from partner companies
like Westinghouse.
You could order appliances fromthe trolley company.
They'd have their name stampedon the back of recipe books that
would be given out, so you'dknow you could get your kitchen
appliances from them.
And you could even get itdelivered by trolley if you
(27:06):
lived along the trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (27:08):
So these trolleys were kind of like meccas for
business almost they were, and Imean like so Braddock Heights,
the top of that mountain inbetween.
Didn't that become some hugeresort situation so that the
trolleys could take morepassengers to and from?
Rueben Moss (27:21):
Yes.
So a lot of railroad companiesat the time were starting
amusement parks.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroadhad an amusement park at
Harper's Ferry on an island.
There was a park called Penmaron the Maryland-Pennsylvania
border, just northeast ofHagerstown, that the Western
Maryland Railroad owned.
And there were other parksaround the country.
(27:42):
Trolley companies saw that asan opportunity as well.
So you had all these parks popup, called electric parks or
trolley parks.
There were several in the area.
There's actually some in DCarea.
Glen Elko Park is probably themost famous.
That was a trolley park.
It was served by the trolleys.
Passengers would ride thetrolley to get to the park and
go home.
(28:02):
So Braddock Heights was one ofthose.
There was nothing but farmlandon the top of the mountain when
they first started talking aboutthe trolley line in 1893, they
built a three-story observationtower so you could go up to the
top of the mountain on the road,look down and see the city of
Frederick, look the otherdirection and see Middletown.
So around that observationtower on this farmland the
(28:26):
company executives got together,bought the top of the mountain,
parceled it out into lots,renamed the top of the mountain
Braddock Heights after GeneralBraddock who had passed through
one of his failed expedition toFort Duquesne.
Along with George Washington,they started this resort
community which had buildingsbuilt to resemble beach homes,
(28:47):
where you could go to theboardwalk and rent a room in a
beach house overlooking theocean, except you were on the
top of a mountain, similarbreeze, nice and cool on a
summer day.
And they started an amusementpark right on the edge of town,
on the highest point of themountain, around the observation
tower, with a skating rink, acarousel, there was a miniature
(29:08):
train ride, a theater, a dancehall, a giant slide just so many
attractions.
At one point there was aplayground that included one of
the retired trolleys.
So all of these things.
And it lasted for a long time.
The company eventually sold it,either in the late 40s, early
50s, into private ownership, andit lasted, I believe, into the
60s before it finally started todecline and went out of
(29:31):
business.
Ayla Sparks (29:31):
So what happened?
I mean, it sounds like trolleyswere really big business and
they were fantastic, but they'renot so much anymore.
There's nothing left, but what?
Four trolley cars.
Rueben Moss (29:41):
There are four surviving trolleys.
A bunch of the originalbuildings, especially in
Frederick County, still stand,but roads the same thing that
trolleys took over because ofthe poor quality of roads.
Once roads were improved, theautomobile became more available
.
The Model T became moreaffordable.
Thanks Henry Ford, trolleykiller.
(30:05):
Once the roads were morepassable and were more
comfortable, people startedgetting their own automobiles
and didn't need the trolleys.
Trucks started being able totransport goods directly from
the farm to the city rather thanneeding to carry them by wagon
from the farm to the trolley andthen load it up, and so it
became more of a.
We can go wherever we want whenwe want, to carry them by wagon
from the farm to the trolleyand then load it up, and so it
became more of a.
(30:26):
We can go wherever we want whenwe want, because we have our
own vehicle type situation Onour own timeline.
On our own timeline, whichthat's still why mass transit
doesn't thrive in the UnitedStates like it does in Europe,
because we don't have as closecommunities and people can do
what they want when they want.
So you have a lot of advertisingstart appearing and in some of
(30:47):
the big cities you had theactual automobile manufacturers
start buying up trolley linesand replacing them with buses
for their own interests.
Locally it was literally justbecause of the fact that the
roads were better, and so peopledidn't see this big electric
train that was loud and slowerand made a lot of noise and
(31:10):
rocked you back and forth.
It became an eyesore for a lotof people and so by the time
they were starting to close thetrolley lines, you'd see
newspaper articles with picturesof a trolley surrounded by
traffic saying soon this eyesorewill be gone and people will
have the freedom to use thebetter mode of transport,
internal combustion.
And it's kind of an irony nowthat we're looking at more
(31:35):
environmentally friendlyelectric vehicles when people
really thought that theautomobile, the internal
combustion gas engine, wasreplacing the outmoded, useless
electric power.
So we come full circle andrealize we were a little bit
wrong there.
Ayla Sparks (31:53):
Maybe, maybe.
So Maybe a little bit, a littlebit, a little bit.
So then they kind of started todecommission these trolleys and
then eventually it ended in thelocal area.
When was that?
Rueben Moss (32:12):
So the main line actually closed during one of
the realignments of Route 40.
So the alternate 40, which iswhat we have in the area, is the
original Route 40.
The state wanted to build a newRoute 40 from Frederick to
Hagerstown.
That was a little bit more of astraight shot because they
could do more excavating.
They could work a little bitbetter with more roads, make it
a little bit more of a straightshot because they could do more
excavating.
They could work a little bitbetter with more roads, make it
a little bit wider without sharpturns.
And the route they chosehappened to cross the trolley
line at seven places, five ofthem being on the slope of the
(32:35):
mountain.
So the state actually came tothe company and said we will
save you the trouble of goingthrough the abandonment process.
We'll allow you to abandonright now.
We'll save you the trouble ofgoing through the abandonment
process.
We'll allow you to abandonright now.
We'll give you some money ifyou close the line between
Myersville and Funkstown.
And so the company said, sure,we'll do that.
And so October of 1938 was thelast trip from Frederick to
(33:00):
Hagerstown with trolley 172.
That same day the last tripfrom Boonesboro to Hagerstown
took place with trolley number151.
And after that the tracks weretorn up, the new highway was
built.
That was the story of the mainline and we suddenly were back
to two different sections, theoriginal two sections of the
(33:20):
line, but this time run by thesame company.
Hagerstown kept their serviceuntil after World War II, 1947,
august 4th was the last tripfrom Hagerstown to Williamsport.
A lot of fanfare, locals, a lotof the retired trolley drivers
got together and were posed infront of the trolley with their
picture taken.
Trolley 172 was painted up asthe last trolley in Washington
(33:43):
County and the last threetrolleys in the Hagerstown area
went together, went down toFunkstown.
Everybody got off the trolleyand got on one of the buses that
was replacing the trolley androde back to Hagerstown.
Two of the trolleys were soldto be used as cabins and 172 was
taken as the newest trolleythey had, was taken over the
(34:05):
mountain back to Frederick bytruck so that they could replace
two trolleys that had been in acrash in Frederick.
So Middletown came.
A month later Trolley 172 againbecame the last trolley from
Middletown to Frederick.
Had tried to get the paint offbut you could see those photos
from the last month of servicein Middletown.
It's got these scratched outwords last trolley in Washington
(34:27):
County.
So the irony is it was the lasttrolley in Middletown and
Washington County with that samepaint and that was the last
official trip.
Day later, I recently learned,apparently a group of local rail
fans and employees convincedthe company to let them take one
last trip to Middletown andback, just with them and for the
(34:50):
fun of it.
They took the sign on the frontbecause the trolleys had signs
on the ends showing what routeit was, on what town it was
going to.
They took the sign and stuckthe funeral sign.
So the last trip betweenFrederick and Middletown on the
original line was the funeraltrip of the trolley.
But that was the last day ofSeptember.
In 1947 was the last officialtrip to Middletown Trolleys
(35:14):
between Frederick and Thurmont,which had been that steam
railroad that they boughtbecause of the freight
connection with the WesternMaryland Railway there and the
fact that people could ride thetrolleys to Thurmont and then
get on a Western Maryland trainand go to Penmar Park from there
.
That remained in service forseveral years.
In early 1954, the company wentto the state, asked if they
(35:38):
could retire the Thurmont Linepassenger service and replace it
with buses.
And it only took a couple weeksbefore they were allowed to.
And February 4th 1954, it was alittle bit of a drizzly, rainy
February day.
People got together, watchedCar 172 and its sister 171 leave
Frederick, went on a round tripup to Thurmont.
(36:01):
They stopped.
A number of local radiostations were there and there
were speeches at the WesternMaryland train station in front
of the trolleys.
And they went back and peoplewere along the trolley truck to
see the last trolleys go.
Hood College, which had actuallybeen built around the trolley
line on the edge of Frederick,had been a major customer of the
(36:23):
trolley line.
They actually had their ownstop for the girls who went to
the then-girls' school.
A group of girls gathered andsang songs, farewell to the
trolley and gave flowers to thecompany president before they
continued.
Then there was a banquet afterthey returned.
Then again a group of employeesgot permission to do one last
trip for themselves who weren'tallowed on that last trip.
(36:46):
But by noon, february 20, 1954,there was no more passenger
service on the Hagerstown andFrederick system which I've
mentioned interurban linesearlier.
It was the last interurban line, some say east of Chicago, I
like to, at least say,mid-atlantic, the last
interurban trolley system tokeep a schedule in the United
(37:07):
States.
In this area there were somecity systems that remained in
service into the 60s Baltimore,philadelphia, dc and a few of
them have actually come backsince then in smaller capacity.
Ayla Sparks (37:19):
So the last four remaining?
You said two of them had goneinto being cabins.
Rueben Moss (37:24):
Yeah, they all had after trolley life.
So all of the trolleys most ofthem, were made primarily out of
wood.
It didn't make sense to burnthem like they did out in
California with the piles oftrolleys.
You'll find photos of wherethey would just stack them and
catch them on fire and thenscrap the metal.
There wasn't enough metal forit.
I'm glad they didn't do that,yeah, so a lot of them were sold
(37:46):
, became some of the earliestmobile homes because you could
buy the trolley for really cheap.
It came without the wheels.
Sometimes they'd take theelectric equipment out so that
they could use them for partsbecause they kept running
freight for a few years afterthat.
But you'd have a pre-madestructure with windows, set it
down on a foundation, put yourfurniture in.
(38:06):
You got a cheap home.
The one number five, which wasbuilt in 1920 out of scrap parts
, was called the Express Motor.
It was basically a freight unitthat was a self-propelled
railroad box car so you couldload it with goods and it had
controls in both ends to runitself and it could pull up to
eight freight cars.
That became a garden shed andthen ended up going to a museum
(38:29):
in the 1960s in Pennsylvania andthey gave it to the Hagerstown
and Frederick Railway HistoricalSociety in the early 2000s.
We had just started ourorganization at that point so we
couldn't afford to keep it, sowe donated it to the town of
Thurmont and they have takengreat care of it.
It's got its own little parkand they've been working on
making a segment of the trolleyline through their town into a
(38:50):
trail.
Right alongside it, car 150,that was bought secondhand.
It was a cabin near Frederick.
It might have been part of arestaurant.
There were four trolleyssimilar of an identical design
that came secondhand at the sametime.
We know at least three of themwere used as a restaurant in
Frederick for a while Not sureif this was one of them and got
(39:12):
moved to be a cabin or just wentstraight to being a cabin.
It was saved in the early 1990sby a gentleman named Don
Easterday who moved it, took thecabin down that had been built
around it, moved it toMyersville and for 1994 until
2012, when his property hostedthe annual Myersville Trolley
Festival, which got a lot morepeople interested in the trolley
(39:35):
history and helped the trolleysurvive.
He kept doing work on it.
When he passed away in 2016,unfortunately, his family sold
the trolley to the town, whoworked with the county to put it
inside of the town's newlibrary.
So you can now go and sit insideof an original Hagerstown and
Frederick trolley and read abook.
The other two there is car 168,which was the first steel-sided
(39:59):
trolley they ever bought.
It was also the first of thesignature design.
Basically, if anybody seespictures of the Hagerstown and
Frederick usually they're goingto think of this one style of
trolley that was really kind ofunique to the line.
Only a couple other trolleycompanies in the whole country
used them.
So it's the original.
It is at the HagerstownRoundhouse Museum, oh yep.
And then the last trolley, 171,which was one of those last two
(40:23):
to Traveling Frederick.
That one was saved as a cabinand is still a cabin, and I'm
not going to say where because Irespect the owner's privacy.
And for a while it was thoughtthat might've been 172, the last
trolley, but the design, thenumber of windows and the actual
fact you could still see someof the number matches 171.
Ayla Sparks (40:46):
So if someone were to want to become a trolley
conductor back in the day, howwould they go about learning
that?
To become a trolley conductorback in the day, how would they
go about learning that?
Rueben Moss (40:55):
Well it's actually not that difficult and there are
a number of museums that youcan actually volunteer and learn
to do that today.
Oh wow, they're always seekingvolunteers for that.
But first you'd have to have anin with the company you could
apply.
Usually they'd need some goodreferences.
You could start at a fairlyyoung age.
(41:17):
I'm not sure what the youngestwould have been.
Usually you'd start working inthe shops or a handyman or
something small, unless you hada really good reference.
But you could.
You'd train as a trainee.
Basically they had a speciallittle badge.
(41:38):
I've only seen one of themsurviving in a private
collection of a student driver.
But they're really easy tooperate, surprisingly, because
there are only three maincontrols.
You've got switches and fusesand lights.
Ayla Sparks (41:53):
It's not like being a flight pilot today.
It's not like being a pilot.
Rueben Moss (41:56):
You have a reverser which basically chooses if
you're going forward orbackwards.
You have an air brake, maybe amanual or a manual brake, maybe
an air brake, depending on thetrolley.
The manual brake, when some ofthem, is the only way to control
stopping, but a lot of themhave an air brake, where that's
(42:17):
what's controlling your speedrather than a throttle.
And then you have the throttle,which just kind of clicks into
different notches.
So to drive a trolley, all youneed to learn how to do is judge
your own speed, provide thepower with the throttle and then
shut it off, let it glide andcontrol the speed with the brake
.
Okay, because the controllerjust takes and is like an
(42:41):
adjustable switch for like adimmer.
There are different sets ofpower that go to different
numbers of motors and resistorbanks on the bottom of the
trolley, a lot of technicalelectrical equipment to reduce
the amount of power going to themotors, and so you're just
giving power, kind of like yousee with modern electric cars
(43:04):
you give it power, it goes.
So you don't need to constantlybe giving it power.
You just give it enough powerto get going, let it glide for a
while and then give it a little, rather than driving a car
where you're constantly puttingyour foot on the pedal.
Ayla Sparks (43:18):
Would you have needed a book like this?
Rueben Moss (43:20):
No, the book that I have here actually belonged to
a gentleman named Thomas Holler.
He was one of the founders ofthe Frederick and Middletown
Railway and this book was partof his private library.
It's got his stamp in it.
It came to us just a couple ofyears ago from the collection of
a gentleman named Carol James,who I'll give a little more
detail on him in a moment.
(43:41):
But the book was.
It's a manual from 1893 on thetechnical aspects of starting a
trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (43:50):
Oh, wow.
Rueben Moss (43:51):
So this little book is a reference guide that would
have been used while they werebuilding the Frederick Trolley
System, so it's really themanual that he at least would
have used.
I'm sure some of the othergentlemen may have had copies of
the same book, and ThomasHaller his name pops up from
time to time.
He was one of the founders.
He was involved into the 1920sso at least 30 years and spent a
(44:15):
lot of that time as the companytreasurer, I believe, and so
it's fascinating to have thisbook that shows how to start a
trolley line.
That belonged to one of theguys that started the trolley
line, and hopefully we'll beable to get it scanned here soon
so that you can actually readthrough it.
It's a little bit delicate now.
Ayla Sparks (44:35):
I can imagine how old is it.
When was it written?
Rueben Moss (44:37):
1893, which was when they started fundraising.
To put things into perspectiveagain, frank Sprague's first
successful passenger trolleyservice in Richmond, virginia,
was 1888.
So this is the first five yearsof practical trolleys.
This book was written for thehundreds of startup trolley
(44:58):
companies, and a lot of thetrolley companies were already
failing because you needed a lotof money, a lot of investment.
So the fact that the littlecompany here survived is
significant.
There was nearby Martinsburg.
West Virginia had a trolleysystem that started in the early
1890s and by the time 1896rolled around they had already
gone out of business.
So three of their trolley carsactually became the first three
(45:21):
to serve in Hagerstownsecondhand.
Ayla Sparks (45:24):
So hopefully this piece will you know relatively
as soon as funding will allow,be able to be part of your
archive that people can access.
Yes, but we also do haveanother artifact that you can
see if you do come to the museum.
Rueben Moss (45:38):
Yes, so we have.
I like to refer to it as thebig piece in reference to the
big piece of the Titanic thatwas brought up that people think
about if you think of Titanicexhibits.
The gentleman named Carol Jameswe also got the book from his
collection was a radio DJ.
He was born in Frederick, grewup in Hagerstown right along the
trolley line.
(45:58):
His father worked for thetrolley company that had become
the power company by then,potomac Edison, and he was just
fascinated by the trolleys.
But he grew up and gotinterested in radio a little bit
more.
So instead of following hisfather's footsteps, he started
working for the local radiostation.
He was able to provide abroadcast for the Hagerstown
(46:20):
radio station WJEJ, from aboardthe last trolley between
Frederick and Thurmont, which isone of the QR codes in our
museum exhibit.
You can actually listen to thatfull 18-minute broadcast that
he put out the next day.
But he kept his love of trolleysand, as he grew more famous, 10
years after the broadcast fromthe last trolley he had gotten a
(46:44):
job as a DJ in Washington DCwhere he threw a connection with
a flight attendant, managed toget a hold of an English copy of
a record from a band thatnobody had heard of or to get a
hold of an English copy of arecord from a band that nobody
had heard of or was starting tohear of, known as the Beatles,
and played one of their songs onhis radio broadcast a little
bit before the Sullivan showrelease.
(47:04):
So originally the Beatlesstudio was very angry with him.
People weren't supposed to hearthe Beatles yet.
It wasosed to be this big EdSullivan release and suddenly
the DC area had heard them andso he was going to get in
trouble for it.
And then they realized hisbroadcast had actually made the
Beatles suddenly popular and ithelped grow the local interest.
(47:25):
So instead of getting introuble, when the Fab Four came
and started their American tourafter the Sullivan show, he got
to be the first radio DJ tointerview them live on the air
in the United States rightbefore their concert in DC.
But all this time he wascollecting trolley things still.
So he was still interested inthe Hagerstown and Frederick
Living in Silver Springs.
(47:46):
He was also interested in theDC and the Baltimore trolleys,
got this collection together andin his later years after he
retired, he started puttingtogether local broadcast
documentaries.
He had a slideshow that youcould buy a copy of the
slideshow and have it shipped toyou anywhere in the country and
you could show it to yourrailroad club with his narration
.
Eventually he turned that intoa documentary in 1994, made it
(48:08):
commercially available andunfortunately passed away three
years later.
But it's the only documentaryabout the trolley system.
Made it commercially availableand unfortunately passed away
three years later, but it's theonly documentary about the
trolley system and it introduceda whole new generation to the
history of the trolley inconjunction with the Trolley
Festival that started that sameyear.
So he and Donald Easterday, Ifeel, are significantly
responsible for the reason somany people still know about the
(48:30):
trolley line.
So after he passed away, notmuch was known about what
happened to his collection andso a couple of years ago found
an item on eBay that just lookeda little interesting, contacted
the seller, found out that itwas from his collection and his
widow, who had remarried since,wasn't sure what to do with
other items, and so we ended upbuying that item, or one of our
(48:54):
supporters bought the item anddonated it to us and a lot of
the other things from hiscollection she donated to us
directly and they make up anumber of the items in the
museum now, as well as quite anumber of items in the archives,
including the book, and amongthem were some items from
Trolley 172, which he even saysin the documentary was his
(49:16):
favorite trolley.
We have an original bell and anoriginal whistle on display,
but the big piece is the largestsurviving piece and that is one
of the original doors.
We have it displayed so that wecan demonstrate its
accordion-like opening andclosing function.
I love the fact that we have itand the book because they're
kind of bookend pieces.
(49:36):
The book talks about the startof the trolley line, but the
door is the end.
This was the door that so manypassengers climbed aboard the
trolley and then climbed offthrough on the last trip.
It was the last trolley thatthey bought new.
It was the most powerfultrolley they had ever operated
and it just was something peopleuse day in and day out.
(49:59):
It's got a brass handle thatwas used as kind of the stair
rail and you can see just howpolished it is.
We haven't polished it.
That's from all the peopleusing it year after year to
climb up the steps onto thetrolley and you can see that or
you can demonstrate it.
Let kids pull on the handle tosee how it latches.
It's just a piece of thetrolley that you see in so many
(50:23):
photos and has such asignificant part on several of
the lines.
Well, it's perfect because youhave kind of the initial, the
beginning and then the end, yeah, the bookend, and if you would
like to see the kind of theinitial, the beginning and then
the end yeah, the bookend items,and if you would like to see
the rest of the story in themiddle, then you should
definitely come to the museum.
Absolutely.
There are quite a number ofexhibits, a lot of photos,
(50:44):
dioramas, maps, a number ofartifacts.
Ayla Sparks (50:46):
While you're in there, you can actually hear.
Rueben Moss (50:48):
You can hear audio recordings of the trolleys as
they were operating in the 1950s.
There was a gentleman fromWisconsin that came and spent
some time recording several ofthe trolleys, and so we have
those records playing in thebackground.
I'm actually going to beworking on an edit of it where
it's not the original clipsbecause it has some horns that
(51:10):
were added later afterBoonesboro service.
So you'll have the originalrecordings, but it will be put
together in such a way that it'sas if you were listening to the
trolleys as they're coming andgoing outside.
So for now we're just playingthe records as is.
Eventually that will change alittle bit.
But, it'll still be the originalsounds.
Ayla Sparks (51:28):
Well, it's very exciting.
Rueben Moss (51:29):
You guys have a lot of good things and if you come
visit this one, in the very,very near future, right next
door is going to be the NationalRoad Museum, which I'm involved
with that as well.
So it's exciting that twostories really mesh together and
it's exciting to have twomuseums that have such an
interesting and important impacton transportation, both locally
(51:50):
and telling the story ofsimilar companies and roads and
railroads throughout the country, all as kind of a cross-section
here in the middle of Maryland.
Ayla Sparks (51:59):
Middle of Boonesboro.
Rueben Moss (52:00):
Middle of Boonesboro.
Ayla Sparks (52:02):
Well, thank you so much for sharing with us all the
information about trolleys.
Who knew I didn't?
Rueben Moss (52:07):
Yeah, there is so much more in transportation
history than people realize andit impacted life for so many
people more than anyone canimagine.
We take transportation forgranted now, but it is a drastic
part of our development.
Ayla Sparks (52:23):
As a culture.
Economic growth yes, and as aculture.
Yeah Well, thank you so muchThank you.
Thank you so much for tuning inand supporting Curator's Choice,
a Mighty Oak Media production.
If you enjoyed the show, pleaseconsider subscribing and rating
the show on Apple Podcasts,spotify, youtube or wherever you
get your podcasts.
(52:44):
If you love a museum and wouldlike to hear it featured in an
episode, shoot me a message atCuratorchoicepodcast at gmailcom
.
I'll do my best to reach outand see if I can get them to be
on the show.
You can also view articles,artifacts and more by following
us on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks for listening toCurator's Choice, a podcast for
(53:05):
history nerds and museum lovers.
Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's Choice, a
podcast for history nerds andmuseum lovers.
From ancient relics to modernmarvels, each episode of this
show features a new museum and acurator's choice of some
amazing artifacts housed there.
These guardians of history willshare insights, anecdotes and
(00:23):
the often untold stories thatbreathe life into the artifacts
they protect.
Thanks for tuning in to thisMighty Oak Media production and
enjoy the show.
So trolleys I'm not going tolie.
Whenever I think of trolley, Iimmediately just think of San
Francisco.
No idea that trolleys were evenon this side of the country.
And wow, they were incrediblehere.
Rueben Moss (00:46):
Trolleys were a big deal nationwide, well,
worldwide actually.
You do think of San Franciscoand a lot of people think of the
cable cars, which aretechnically not trolleys.
You're right, that's exactlywhat I think of.
Now, san Francisco does havetrolleys.
They're along the wharf, alongthe waterline.
They're along the wharf, alongthe water line, but cable cars,
which is what most people thinkof, actually run by a constantly
(01:08):
moving metal cable under thestreet and they just grab onto
it.
That's why they all go the samespeed.
Trolleys get their name fromthe overhead pole.
There's a single pole thelittle arm that reaches out,
yeah.
They're a wheel or a carbonslider at the end that rubs
against a copper wire and thatwire provides electricity.
(01:30):
Different trolleys were alittle bit different but on
average 550 to 650 volts of DCpower it's a lot of electricity
Provides the electricity tooperate motors in the wheels and
each trolley can beindividually controlled.
It's basically an extensioncord and the same thing.
That eventually evolved intolarger, mainline high-speed
(01:52):
electric trains.
We have today Some of the sametechnology.
It was developed in Europe earlyin the railroad era, 1830s.
They were already experimentingwith electric rail cars.
Nothing really happened.
There were a couplesemi-successful experiments over
the years, but it was 1888.
A gentleman named Frank Sprague,who had worked for Thomas
(02:14):
Edison, got his own ideas,studied other inventors in the
world, especially from Europe,who were also experimenting with
electricity, came up with hisown ideas and designs for
electric motors.
He set up the first successfulelectric trolley system in
Richmond, virginia, in the US,in the US, in Richmond, in
Richmond.
Now there was one in theBaltimore area that was already
(02:37):
running, but it was kind of anexperimental thing still and it
wasn't self-propelled.
It had a little engine that ranon the electricity that pulled
a horse wagon.
So a lot of towns hadhorse-drawn wagons that were
running on rails but notself-propelled, so it was sort
of an electric horse wagon atthe time.
So Frank Sprague's designsactually incorporated it all
(02:57):
into one vehicle, and not onlydid it work well, but it also
went up hills, and that's howthe local system came about.
So by the time local peoplewere getting involved, there
were hundreds of trolley linesacross the country.
Ayla Sparks (03:13):
So people were very familiar with trolleys.
Rueben Moss (03:14):
People were very familiar with trolleys.
The trolley systems were big,were small and I should point
out there are two types oftrolley system and it comes into
play with some of thetechnicalities here.
There are streetcar systems,which are usually smaller,
lighter, run in the city streets, maybe connect to some suburbs.
(03:37):
They were the ones that lastedthe longest, honestly, and those
are mostly for people.
Those are mostly for people.
Sometimes they'd have freight.
Occasionally in cities they'deven have funeral cars that were
just for carrying funeralparties with the casket and
everything Very, veryinteresting.
Ayla Sparks (03:53):
That is crazy.
Rueben Moss (03:55):
Were they like all black.
They came in different colors Idon't think I've seen a color
photo but some of them wouldhave, like the door on the side
to slide the casket in,sometimes be glass, like a wagon
hearse would be a glass or theback of a modern hearse so you
could see the casket go by andthen the rest of the trolley was
seating for the funeral partyand they just go straight to the
(04:17):
cemetery.
The local system didn't havethat but they did pass a couple
cemeteries so it's possible theydid have rate for bodies.
Ayla Sparks (04:26):
Oh my gosh, this is crazy.
Rueben Moss (04:33):
Then there's also inner urban lines, and inner
urban lines were trolley systemsdesigned to connect towns to
other towns, and that's what wehad here in Central Maryland was
an inner urban system that alsoran streetcars, and so that's
the definitive point with it.
This was a major interurbanline for its type.
It was a rural interurban, oneof the largest rural interurban
systems in the country and thelast in the mid-Atlantic to
(04:56):
operate a schedule.
Other interurban lines a lot ofpeople think of, if they're
familiar with trolleys, would bethings like the lines around
Chicago or New York, where it'sbig, high-speed electric
trolleys that are later replacedby elevated trains or
high-speed trains or justretired altogether.
But those had hundreds ofmillions of passengers and were
(05:20):
constantly running multipleunits that were connected
together.
This was a single trolleyrunning through farmland from
town to town, which was a lot ofthose.
They popped up everywhere.
There wasn't already railroadservice and a lot of them only
lasted a few years.
Ayla Sparks (05:36):
And they were short , right, they didn't go very far
.
Rueben Moss (05:39):
Some of them went from one town to another,
connected two or three towns.
Here in Central Maryland at itspeak, over two dozen
communities were connected bythis trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (05:48):
Well, and what's really interesting, you were
telling me in the museum itself,the way that Lowell-Boonesboro
got their trolley line startedis a pretty cool story.
Rueben Moss (05:59):
So there were two different companies here there
was the Fredericton MiddletownRailway Company and there was
the Hdletown Railway Company andthere was the Hagerstown
Railway.
Ayla Sparks (06:07):
And how?
For people who aren't familiarwith Maryland, how far away are
these two towns?
Rueben Moss (06:10):
They're like maybe 25 miles.
Ayla Sparks (06:12):
Roughly 20 to 30 miles.
Rueben Moss (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, today you can drive the difference in
about half hour to 40 minutes.
It's not too far away, but atthe time it was really hard to
get from town to town.
The National Road was reallythe only way to get to a lot of
these communities and it hadfallen into disrepair.
So for the people of Middletownwhose livelihood depended on
(06:36):
the National Road they were afarm community, they had been a
stagecoach location, so they haddepended on people coming to
town, stopping tradingstagecoaches, getting a bite to
eat, staying the night inbetween their stagecoaches on
their trip.
The decline of the road becauseof railroads and, to a lesser
point, canals, meant that thetown's economy was starting to
(07:00):
struggle and the farmers wereseeing people in other
communities along railroads gettheir goods transported to the
bigger cities and making moremoney, while the people in
Middletown were looking atseveral hours just to go the six
miles from their town to thecity of Frederick just because
the road was in bad shape andthey had to go over a mountain.
(07:20):
So people got together, starteda company, tried to get
investors and couldn't getanybody involved from outside of
town, and so the company spentthree years just selling stock
to local businessmen, farmers,local families and eventually
had enough money to get somesecondhand supplies and borrow
some equipment and startbuilding in 1896.
(07:43):
So they started in 1893 withtheir fundraising and began
construction in 1896 and finallygot something running in the
middle late August in that yearto the top of the mountain.
Ayla Sparks (07:55):
And where were they trying to get to?
To Middletown.
Well, so, from where, though?
From Frederick, from?
Rueben Moss (08:00):
the city.
Ayla Sparks (08:00):
So they were trying to take it from Middletown to
Frederick to sell all the goodsTo sell their goods in Frederick
or connect with the railroadsthat were already in Frederick.
Rueben Moss (08:07):
So there were a lot of options.
Once you got to the city, youhad a lot of options on where
you could sell your goods,either locally or go to
Baltimore or go to basically anyother city in the country.
You couldn't do that if youcouldn't get over the mountain
before the goods spoiled.
So the construction began.
Instead of starting inMiddletown, where the money came
(08:28):
from, they started in Frederick, where the city wasn't all that
interested but was willing toallow it to get built, and the
construction finally opened theline to Braddock Heights, which
was the top of the mountain.
There was no town, nothing, upthere.
It wasn't even called BraddockHeights at the time, it was just
the top of Catoctin Mountain,and the opening day of service
(08:51):
just to the top of the mountainfor picnics was packed.
People in Frederick wanted toget to the top of the mountain.
A little while later there was aextension to the county
fairgrounds because the countyfair took place the next month
and 16,000 tickets were sold andthey only owned three trolleys
at the time.
That's a little bit of adiscrepancy.
(09:13):
Yes, 16,000 tickets were soldto get people to the fair and it
was a four-day event and howmany people can normally fit on
a trolley?
About 40 at a time for thetrolleys they had.
So they did not have nearlyenough.
They did not have.
They were able to do it, but itwas a lot of work and those
trolleys really were put to thetest.
It wasn't until October of thatyear that Middletown was
(09:33):
finally reached and they finallybuilt a station outside of town
at the top of a hill wherewomen complained that they
couldn't go into the city inhigh heels because they had to
climb this really steep hill toget to the station.
So they eventually built a newstation closer to town and
people were happy.
Ayla Sparks (09:50):
Because anyone who would have been coming from
Frederick out here, they wouldbe coming out here for more of
like a good time, enjoyment,pleasure area yeah, out to the
country, rather than the goodsfrom Middletown going to
Frederick.
So you're kind of having tocomply or meet the conveniences
of two different kinds of people.
Rueben Moss (10:05):
Yes, exactly, and anybody going from Middletown to
Frederick.
They were going into the bigcity.
They wanted to be dressed up,they were going for shopping.
They didn't want to have tohave a whole lot of strain to
carry things back from theirshopping trip.
But the main reason for theline from Middletown to
Frederick was freight.
So one of the three trolleysthey purchased was able to pull
little wagons over the mountainand the company claimed to be
(10:28):
the first trolley company in thecountry to pull freight over a
mountain with electric power.
Eventually you'd have bigrailroads pulling big freight
trains with massive electriclocomotives out west for a brief
time.
But this was a significantadvance.
But it's something that theyclaimed.
We've never been able to provefor sure that they were.
(10:50):
We're not the first to pullfreight, but they were possibly
the first to pull freight over amountain with electric power.
But at the same time all thatwas happening in Hagerstown.
Two investors from Harrisburg,pennsylvania, saw Hagerstown as
a way to make money.
They had a lot of friends witha lot of money.
They got a lot of moneytogether and they built this
state-of-the-art streetcar line.
(11:11):
It was an interurban but theyconsidered it streetcar between
Hagerstown and the nearbycommunity of Williamsport along
the Potomac River which had alot of industry growing.
And when was this?
This was at the same time, 1896.
So they started theirfundraising after Frederick
began or the Middletown linebegan construction.
They started service betweenHagerstown and Williamsport two
(11:33):
weeks before Frederick began, sothey started after they had
enough money to finish first.
They were successful.
They had a lot of investment.
They started expandingimmediately.
By 1902, they had reachedBoonesboro here and the idea was
actually to reach thebattlefield at Antietam,
sharpsburg, because thatbattlefields were beginning to
(11:54):
become a tourist destination.
At the time it already was.
Some of the steam railroads inthe area already had promoted
tourism.
I believe it was the Norfolkand Western Railroad had built a
station not far from Sharpsburgwhere the battlefield is, and
they had actually built asidewalk from their station into
the battlefield where the towndidn't really have a sidewalk
(12:15):
except for in town, just becausethey had so many tourists
coming.
So they thought that it wasgoing to be extended all the way
out there.
We don't really know why theystopped here in Boonesboro and
never continued.
They had started surveying andgrading and then just stopped.
But Boonesboro had farm goods.
We had cantaloupes andraspberries and peaches, which
were the main exports from town.
(12:36):
There were a lot of stores herein Boonesboro and so a lot of
goods would come in by trolleyas well.
They transported the mail herefrom Hagerstown, and a lot of
people coming into town to goshopping or leaving Boonesboro
to go into Hagerstown to go tothe theaters or the department
stores became main fares for thetrolley.
Ayla Sparks (12:56):
And apparently Boonesboro had some spectacular
melons.
Rueben Moss (13:00):
Yes, I have never seen any photographs showing
exactly how big, but thecantaloupes that were grown here
were said to be some of themost delicious cantaloupes ever
grown and could have been, insome cases, as large as a
basketball.
I can't substantiate that withany proof.
But they were very popular fromthe time they were very popular
(13:21):
, at least regionally, as one ofthe best cantaloupes in the
country.
But you won't see them now youwon't see them now.
I have been told by thedescendants of some of the
farmers that the original strainof seeds was lost years ago.
It's a shame.
They still grow cantaloupeshere and they are still
delicious cantaloupes, butthey're not quite the
(13:42):
world-class cantaloupes that youhear about from the past.
Ayla Sparks (13:46):
That's fantastic.
So you have Hagerstown kind ofmore for the theater and the
entertainment business.
You have Boonesboro.
That is really for trade.
Rueben Moss (13:53):
Agriculture trade, still passengers, there were
still things to do around here.
People were still coming hereon their way to Antietam.
You just have to take a horsethe rest of the way, or a
vehicle of some kind.
Ayla Sparks (14:06):
So after the success of both of these two
different trolley lines,eventually they merge.
Yes.
Rueben Moss (14:12):
So the Hagerstown Company wanted to expand.
They actually wanted to buy theFrederick Company.
The Frederick Company wasn'tinterested in selling, but they
there was a little town in themiddle between Hagerstown and
Frederick known as Myersvillethat had also built their own
trolley line to connect theMiddletown line.
They sold their track toHagerstown's company because
they wanted a connection toHagerstown.
(14:32):
And so the Hagerstown company,halfway between Hagerstown and
Boonesboro, started buildingover the mountain to connect to
Myersville and on December 1st1904, they were able to take the
first Hagerstown trolley allthe way to Frederick and became
the first through service Tooktwo hours where by horse and
(14:52):
wagon, unless you were taking astagecoach or a very fast horse,
you could spend a couple daystaking that trip by the road.
So massive improvement.
It was a massive improvement.
It was a little pricey so youdidn't have everybody using it.
A lot of people only used itfor special occasions.
But then you did, over time,have people who became commuters
(15:13):
because it was cost effectivefor them.
And one thing I didn't mentionat the museum it also became the
way for students to get toschools.
There were no school buses atthe time and so the schools
would subsidize or, if theyweren't subsidizing.
The parents could buy cheaptickets and you'd have one room
school houses in the area forearly grades.
(15:35):
But if you wanted to let yourchild go to high school or if
you were going to college, youhad to get to the city and so
you could get a student ticket,a student pass, to go into the
city to get further education.
And so it opened up theopportunity for families that
couldn't otherwise get to betterschooling because it wasn't
mandatory and it wasn't provided, but it was free or cheap if
(15:58):
they could get to it.
Suddenly you're opening upthese other opportunities for
poorer families that didn't owntheir own vehicle to allow
education for their children.
Ayla Sparks (16:08):
What would it have been like when you were actually
riding one of these trolleys?
Was it kind of like, I imagine,a train car today, where you
kind of purchase your ticket,you sit and ride and enjoy
yourself till you get there.
You can have snacks?
There must not have been aflight attendant walking up and
down the trolley line.
No flight attendant, no snacks.
Rueben Moss (16:24):
No snacks, you could bring your own snacks.
Okay, the trolleys were verymuch like a regular train car.
They would have a controller onboth ends so that the driver
would be on one end of the caror the other.
They'd come to a dead end sothe seats actually could change
direction.
They had little handles so inbetween trips the driver would
change what direction the seatswere facing.
(16:44):
Most of the trolleys in thearea had either a wood bench or
what was called vertan, which isa wicker-like varnish material.
It's not wicker but itresembles wicker.
It's varnished.
It would be padded seats madeof I think it might be bamboo
strips.
That was easy to clean, butonce it started breaking it
would start catching on yourclothes, so they had to keep it
(17:06):
well-maintained.
Usually it would get coatedwith a lot of lacquer to keep it
nice and varnished.
In later years they startedreplacing it with fake leather
material.
But you'd have a lot of rockingback and forth.
It was kind of loud.
You'd have that clickety-clackof regular railroad tracks you'd
expect.
Ayla Sparks (17:26):
How fast were they going?
Rueben Moss (17:27):
They'd go about 20 to 25 miles per hour on level
ground, which was actuallypretty fast at first, because
we're talking turn of thecentury, when cars had a speed
limit of eight miles per hour.
Ayla Sparks (17:37):
You feel like they're riding a roller coaster.
Rueben Moss (17:39):
Yes, which at the time steam trains were going a
lot faster by then.
But for trolley service thatwas pretty significant.
You're running on electricity,about 600 volts, as I said, and
it could take hills, which waswhy they went with trolleys,
because there are two mountainranges between Frederick and
Hagerstown, so they could handlethe steep climbs, they could
(18:00):
handle sharp turns.
The sharp turns were theloudest point because you get a
very loud squeal of the wheelsas you're making those turns,
especially in the city.
Ayla Sparks (18:09):
It's like when you're in a parking garage and
you're making a slow turn.
Rueben Moss (18:12):
Yes, yes, a little bit louder than that, though.
It can be almost deafening.
There are some places you cango ride trolleys around the
country and experience this foryourself.
But you'd either get a prepaidticket at a station there were
stations in some of the majorcommunities.
A lot of times you could get around trip if you were going to
go and come back.
If you were paying for a tripthat involved trading trolleys
(18:36):
at a point you would get atransfer.
So you get a little ticket thatyou could hand over.
That was good for the nextpassing trolley, so you couldn't
stop and enjoy yourself in alayover and then get on another
trolley.
You had to get on the next oneor else it would be void.
But if you didn't have aprepaid ticket, you could wave
down a trolley anywhere alongthe line and they'd stop and let
you in.
You'd just pay the cash farefor whatever the closest station
(18:58):
was.
Ayla Sparks (18:58):
Oh, wow.
So this is perfect, because ifyou were to be going to one of
these trolley stations, thathappens to be what the museum is
.
Rueben Moss (19:07):
Yes, so tell us a little bit about the museum.
This trolley stop, so what wehave the museum housed in is the
last surviving purpose-builttrolley station in Washington
County.
Ayla Sparks (19:19):
And it almost didn't exist.
Rueben Moss (19:21):
It almost didn't exist.
The town of Boonesboro acquiredthe property after a hardware
store that had been here closed.
It was part of a plan toredevelop the park that's just
behind the property and therewere a lot of derelict buildings
that were cleansed safe.
So they had contracted tobulldoze.
There's now a road that wasn'tthere that goes alongside the
(19:43):
station bulldoze.
There's now a road that wasn'tthere that goes alongside the
station, and the town manager atthe time had decided to get in
touch with a local historian tolook into whether any of the
buildings had historicalsignificance.
And gets a call from thehistorian one day saying yes,
one of the buildings is actuallythe last trolley station in the
county.
So, knowing that the bulldozerhad just been unloaded, the town
(20:05):
manager ran down the street andjumped in front of the
bulldozer when it was five to 10feet away from the building,
with his hands up waving forthem to stop.
Otherwise, if he had beenanother minute, the station
probably would have just beenknocked down and been beyond
saving.
Ayla Sparks (20:19):
And it sounds like a dramatization, but you
actually have people who are apart of the museum now, who
remember seeing him running downthe street.
Rueben Moss (20:27):
Yes, yes, so I have been guaranteed.
That's exactly how it happened,even though it sounds like
something out of a movie or a TVshow.
Ayla Sparks (20:33):
That's fantastic.
Yeah, so the museum?
Well, the trolley station issaved.
Rueben Moss (20:38):
It is saved and it was restored.
There was a architectural classin Baltimore that came out, did
a study on both buildings,actually the trolley station and
the main hardware storebuilding which will be the
National Road Museum right nextdoor.
They gave recommendations forarchitectural details, suggested
where an original wall that hadbeen removed should go back in
(20:59):
place and what it should bebuilt out of, and just to study
on the property itself.
And those recommendations wereused between 2005 and 2009 when
the station was restored.
Ayla Sparks (21:11):
And so now, whenever you come in, the first
thing that you encounter is thewaiting room.
That is quite small, I wouldsay so cozy, I guess would be a
preferential term.
Rueben Moss (21:21):
Well, it is very small.
It would have had benches.
It would have had a ticket desk.
We've represented as best as wecan right now what it would
have looked like.
Inside we have a stove.
It's a little bit larger thanthe stove that would have been
in there.
It was probably a potbellystove originally, but we have a
relatively locally cast stove inthere to represent the only
(21:43):
heat the building would have hadat the time.
But it was an improvement overwhat people had.
We believe the building wasbuilt around 1910.
That was in response to a lotof complaints from people who
even went in the newspaperlocally that passengers stated
that they were suffering fromhaving the floor as a platform
or the ground as a platform andthe sky as a roof.
(22:04):
So if you were waiting for thetrolley you had to hide in one
of the local businesses if itwas raining.
The office was in an oldfactory that was nearby but not
where the actual stop was.
Ayla Sparks (22:19):
So you could get a ticket here but you didn't have
anywhere to wait for the trolley.
Well, it makes sense for thetown itself to have more of a
station, because then you canalso kind of increase the amount
of work, well, the amount ofcommerce happening there.
Rueben Moss (22:27):
Yes, so the station has the little waiting room in
the corner, and the rest of thebuilding was used to store
freight in between transportingbetween vehicles, wagons or
trucks and the trolleys.
The trolleys actually came tothe front of the building, while
vehicles could pull up to theside and unload goods or load
goods between the building.
Ayla Sparks (22:48):
And underground.
In front you still have some ofthe original rail lines.
Rueben Moss (22:51):
Yes, the freight siding part of the freight
siding is still in place underthe front grass.
Eventually we hope to expose itso people can actually see that
original rail.
But we will have arepresentation of the passenger
platform track that was removedwhen it was retired sometime
soon, hopefully within the nextyear.
Ayla Sparks (23:11):
So within the timeline of having these two
companies begin and then kind ofmerge and then merge into one
gigantically long trolley line,when does the station come into
play?
Rueben Moss (23:22):
This station comes in right before the merger.
So this would have still been aproduct of the Hagerstown
Railway Company, which was stillquite a large company, but it
was accruing debts at that point.
So they were trying to expand,trying to improve.
At the same time.
This building was built thoughthe Frederick Company, the
Frederick of Middletown, underthe management of a man named
(23:43):
Emery Koblentz.
The Frederick of Middletownunder the management of a man
named Emery Koblentz, who was aMiddletown area banker and
businessman involved in a lot ofother ventures.
He had become president of thecompany in 1905.
He took the company and startedinvesting in a lot of
infrastructure.
So they built a new FrederickTerminal Station, new offices,
new trolley maintenance building, replaced a lot of bridges and
(24:05):
bought a steam railroad thatwent from Frederick to Thurmont
and converted that to electric,which over doubled the size of
their system and connected themwith a Baltimore to Cumberland
railroad line.
So he was responsible for a lotof expansion and the company
actually got renamed to theFrederick Railroad and he
started buying power companiesin the area, started selling
(24:27):
power to communities andexpanding the power holdings of
the company.
Since they were already runningthe trolleys off of electrical
power, it just made sense tostart selling their excess
electrical power to people andexpanding that service and
making more money that way.
Ayla Sparks (24:43):
So were they actually generating power that
they then used for the trolley,or the trolley used itself
generated power?
Rueben Moss (24:49):
They generated power.
So trolley companies wouldstart coal power plants.
The Hagerstown Company builttheir first one in Williamsport.
Two years later they had tobuild a bigger one outside of
Hagerstown and the FrederickCompany bought power from an
existing gas and power companythat was very small in Frederick
before two years later buildingtheir own power plant near
(25:10):
Middletown and then they boughtthe one that had been providing
power to them.
Ayla Sparks (25:15):
But the trolleys didn't take that much power, so
they had excess power.
Rueben Moss (25:17):
They had excess power, they had to generate AC
power and transmit that, becauseAC power, which is what we're
used to using today in our homes, that can be sent over long
distances without really losingenergy.
But the trolleys ran on DC powerwhich after a while it starts
to lose its energy.
So they couldn't go more thanabout a mile before they had to
(25:38):
get an influx of fresh power.
So they would build a powersubstation every two miles and
run the power poles along thetrolley line.
And every two miles at thesesubstations the AC electric
which was generated in largeamounts was converted to DC
power to run the trolleys.
And then they had all thatextra AC and DC power they could
(25:59):
work with.
So they started wiring nearbyhouses, started running new
power lines to nearbycommunities and farms.
I like to point out that in theMidwest and some of the Western
communities there were areaswhere you didn't see electricity
until the 1950s because itdidn't make sense for a power
(26:19):
company to run all those wiresfor a small town.
But where there was a trolleyline you always have the
opportunity for electricity andfarmers here in our area before
1900 could have upgraded toelectric motors if they wanted
to for water pumps and electriclighting.
Ayla Sparks (26:35):
Where there's a trolley, there's a way.
Where there's a trolley,there's a way.
So then they started selling.
The trolley companies startedselling electric things for
houses.
Rueben Moss (26:45):
Yes, they started appliance stores.
They started deliveringcatalogs from partner companies
like Westinghouse.
You could order appliances fromthe trolley company.
They'd have their name stampedon the back of recipe books that
would be given out, so you'dknow you could get your kitchen
appliances from them.
And you could even get itdelivered by trolley if you
(27:06):
lived along the trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (27:08):
So these trolleys were kind of like meccas for
business almost they were, and Imean like so Braddock Heights,
the top of that mountain inbetween.
Didn't that become some hugeresort situation so that the
trolleys could take morepassengers to and from?
Rueben Moss (27:21):
Yes.
So a lot of railroad companiesat the time were starting
amusement parks.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroadhad an amusement park at
Harper's Ferry on an island.
There was a park called Penmaron the Maryland-Pennsylvania
border, just northeast ofHagerstown, that the Western
Maryland Railroad owned.
And there were other parksaround the country.
(27:42):
Trolley companies saw that asan opportunity as well.
So you had all these parks popup, called electric parks or
trolley parks.
There were several in the area.
There's actually some in DCarea.
Glen Elko Park is probably themost famous.
That was a trolley park.
It was served by the trolleys.
Passengers would ride thetrolley to get to the park and
go home.
(28:02):
So Braddock Heights was one ofthose.
There was nothing but farmlandon the top of the mountain when
they first started talking aboutthe trolley line in 1893, they
built a three-story observationtower so you could go up to the
top of the mountain on the road,look down and see the city of
Frederick, look the otherdirection and see Middletown.
So around that observationtower on this farmland the
(28:26):
company executives got together,bought the top of the mountain,
parceled it out into lots,renamed the top of the mountain
Braddock Heights after GeneralBraddock who had passed through
one of his failed expedition toFort Duquesne.
Along with George Washington,they started this resort
community which had buildingsbuilt to resemble beach homes,
(28:47):
where you could go to theboardwalk and rent a room in a
beach house overlooking theocean, except you were on the
top of a mountain, similarbreeze, nice and cool on a
summer day.
And they started an amusementpark right on the edge of town,
on the highest point of themountain, around the observation
tower, with a skating rink, acarousel, there was a miniature
(29:08):
train ride, a theater, a dancehall, a giant slide just so many
attractions.
At one point there was aplayground that included one of
the retired trolleys.
So all of these things.
And it lasted for a long time.
The company eventually sold it,either in the late 40s, early
50s, into private ownership, andit lasted, I believe, into the
60s before it finally started todecline and went out of
(29:31):
business.
Ayla Sparks (29:31):
So what happened?
I mean, it sounds like trolleyswere really big business and
they were fantastic, but they'renot so much anymore.
There's nothing left, but what?
Four trolley cars.
Rueben Moss (29:41):
There are four surviving trolleys.
A bunch of the originalbuildings, especially in
Frederick County, still stand,but roads the same thing that
trolleys took over because ofthe poor quality of roads.
Once roads were improved, theautomobile became more available
.
The Model T became moreaffordable.
Thanks Henry Ford, trolleykiller.
(30:05):
Once the roads were morepassable and were more
comfortable, people startedgetting their own automobiles
and didn't need the trolleys.
Trucks started being able totransport goods directly from
the farm to the city rather thanneeding to carry them by wagon
from the farm to the trolley andthen load it up, and so it
became more of a.
We can go wherever we want whenwe want, to carry them by wagon
from the farm to the trolleyand then load it up, and so it
became more of a.
(30:26):
We can go wherever we want whenwe want, because we have our
own vehicle type situation Onour own timeline.
On our own timeline, whichthat's still why mass transit
doesn't thrive in the UnitedStates like it does in Europe,
because we don't have as closecommunities and people can do
what they want when they want.
So you have a lot of advertisingstart appearing and in some of
(30:47):
the big cities you had theactual automobile manufacturers
start buying up trolley linesand replacing them with buses
for their own interests.
Locally it was literally justbecause of the fact that the
roads were better, and so peopledidn't see this big electric
train that was loud and slowerand made a lot of noise and
(31:10):
rocked you back and forth.
It became an eyesore for a lotof people and so by the time
they were starting to close thetrolley lines, you'd see
newspaper articles with picturesof a trolley surrounded by
traffic saying soon this eyesorewill be gone and people will
have the freedom to use thebetter mode of transport,
internal combustion.
And it's kind of an irony nowthat we're looking at more
(31:35):
environmentally friendlyelectric vehicles when people
really thought that theautomobile, the internal
combustion gas engine, wasreplacing the outmoded, useless
electric power.
So we come full circle andrealize we were a little bit
wrong there.
Ayla Sparks (31:53):
Maybe, maybe.
So Maybe a little bit, a littlebit, a little bit.
So then they kind of started todecommission these trolleys and
then eventually it ended in thelocal area.
When was that?
Rueben Moss (32:12):
So the main line actually closed during one of
the realignments of Route 40.
So the alternate 40, which iswhat we have in the area, is the
original Route 40.
The state wanted to build a newRoute 40 from Frederick to
Hagerstown.
That was a little bit more of astraight shot because they
could do more excavating.
They could work a little bitbetter with more roads, make it
a little bit more of a straightshot because they could do more
excavating.
They could work a little bitbetter with more roads, make it
a little bit wider without sharpturns.
And the route they chosehappened to cross the trolley
line at seven places, five ofthem being on the slope of the
(32:35):
mountain.
So the state actually came tothe company and said we will
save you the trouble of goingthrough the abandonment process.
We'll allow you to abandonright now.
We'll save you the trouble ofgoing through the abandonment
process.
We'll allow you to abandonright now.
We'll give you some money ifyou close the line between
Myersville and Funkstown.
And so the company said, sure,we'll do that.
And so October of 1938 was thelast trip from Frederick to
(33:00):
Hagerstown with trolley 172.
That same day the last tripfrom Boonesboro to Hagerstown
took place with trolley number151.
And after that the tracks weretorn up, the new highway was
built.
That was the story of the mainline and we suddenly were back
to two different sections, theoriginal two sections of the
(33:20):
line, but this time run by thesame company.
Hagerstown kept their serviceuntil after World War II, 1947,
august 4th was the last tripfrom Hagerstown to Williamsport.
A lot of fanfare, locals, a lotof the retired trolley drivers
got together and were posed infront of the trolley with their
picture taken.
Trolley 172 was painted up asthe last trolley in Washington
(33:43):
County and the last threetrolleys in the Hagerstown area
went together, went down toFunkstown.
Everybody got off the trolleyand got on one of the buses that
was replacing the trolley androde back to Hagerstown.
Two of the trolleys were soldto be used as cabins and 172 was
taken as the newest trolleythey had, was taken over the
(34:05):
mountain back to Frederick bytruck so that they could replace
two trolleys that had been in acrash in Frederick.
So Middletown came.
A month later Trolley 172 againbecame the last trolley from
Middletown to Frederick.
Had tried to get the paint offbut you could see those photos
from the last month of servicein Middletown.
It's got these scratched outwords last trolley in Washington
(34:27):
County.
So the irony is it was the lasttrolley in Middletown and
Washington County with that samepaint and that was the last
official trip.
Day later, I recently learned,apparently a group of local rail
fans and employees convincedthe company to let them take one
last trip to Middletown andback, just with them and for the
(34:50):
fun of it.
They took the sign on the frontbecause the trolleys had signs
on the ends showing what routeit was, on what town it was
going to.
They took the sign and stuckthe funeral sign.
So the last trip betweenFrederick and Middletown on the
original line was the funeraltrip of the trolley.
But that was the last day ofSeptember.
In 1947 was the last officialtrip to Middletown Trolleys
(35:14):
between Frederick and Thurmont,which had been that steam
railroad that they boughtbecause of the freight
connection with the WesternMaryland Railway there and the
fact that people could ride thetrolleys to Thurmont and then
get on a Western Maryland trainand go to Penmar Park from there
.
That remained in service forseveral years.
In early 1954, the company wentto the state, asked if they
(35:38):
could retire the Thurmont Linepassenger service and replace it
with buses.
And it only took a couple weeksbefore they were allowed to.
And February 4th 1954, it was alittle bit of a drizzly, rainy
February day.
People got together, watchedCar 172 and its sister 171 leave
Frederick, went on a round tripup to Thurmont.
(36:01):
They stopped.
A number of local radiostations were there and there
were speeches at the WesternMaryland train station in front
of the trolleys.
And they went back and peoplewere along the trolley truck to
see the last trolleys go.
Hood College, which had actuallybeen built around the trolley
line on the edge of Frederick,had been a major customer of the
(36:23):
trolley line.
They actually had their ownstop for the girls who went to
the then-girls' school.
A group of girls gathered andsang songs, farewell to the
trolley and gave flowers to thecompany president before they
continued.
Then there was a banquet afterthey returned.
Then again a group of employeesgot permission to do one last
trip for themselves who weren'tallowed on that last trip.
(36:46):
But by noon, february 20, 1954,there was no more passenger
service on the Hagerstown andFrederick system which I've
mentioned interurban linesearlier.
It was the last interurban line, some say east of Chicago, I
like to, at least say,mid-atlantic, the last
interurban trolley system tokeep a schedule in the United
(37:07):
States.
In this area there were somecity systems that remained in
service into the 60s Baltimore,philadelphia, dc and a few of
them have actually come backsince then in smaller capacity.
Ayla Sparks (37:19):
So the last four remaining?
You said two of them had goneinto being cabins.
Rueben Moss (37:24):
Yeah, they all had after trolley life.
So all of the trolleys most ofthem, were made primarily out of
wood.
It didn't make sense to burnthem like they did out in
California with the piles oftrolleys.
You'll find photos of wherethey would just stack them and
catch them on fire and thenscrap the metal.
There wasn't enough metal forit.
I'm glad they didn't do that,yeah, so a lot of them were sold
(37:46):
, became some of the earliestmobile homes because you could
buy the trolley for really cheap.
It came without the wheels.
Sometimes they'd take theelectric equipment out so that
they could use them for partsbecause they kept running
freight for a few years afterthat.
But you'd have a pre-madestructure with windows, set it
down on a foundation, put yourfurniture in.
(38:06):
You got a cheap home.
The one number five, which wasbuilt in 1920 out of scrap parts
, was called the Express Motor.
It was basically a freight unitthat was a self-propelled
railroad box car so you couldload it with goods and it had
controls in both ends to runitself and it could pull up to
eight freight cars.
That became a garden shed andthen ended up going to a museum
(38:29):
in the 1960s in Pennsylvania andthey gave it to the Hagerstown
and Frederick Railway HistoricalSociety in the early 2000s.
We had just started ourorganization at that point so we
couldn't afford to keep it, sowe donated it to the town of
Thurmont and they have takengreat care of it.
It's got its own little parkand they've been working on
making a segment of the trolleyline through their town into a
(38:50):
trail.
Right alongside it, car 150,that was bought secondhand.
It was a cabin near Frederick.
It might have been part of arestaurant.
There were four trolleyssimilar of an identical design
that came secondhand at the sametime.
We know at least three of themwere used as a restaurant in
Frederick for a while Not sureif this was one of them and got
(39:12):
moved to be a cabin or just wentstraight to being a cabin.
It was saved in the early 1990sby a gentleman named Don
Easterday who moved it, took thecabin down that had been built
around it, moved it toMyersville and for 1994 until
2012, when his property hostedthe annual Myersville Trolley
Festival, which got a lot morepeople interested in the trolley
(39:35):
history and helped the trolleysurvive.
He kept doing work on it.
When he passed away in 2016,unfortunately, his family sold
the trolley to the town, whoworked with the county to put it
inside of the town's newlibrary.
So you can now go and sit insideof an original Hagerstown and
Frederick trolley and read abook.
The other two there is car 168,which was the first steel-sided
(39:59):
trolley they ever bought.
It was also the first of thesignature design.
Basically, if anybody seespictures of the Hagerstown and
Frederick usually they're goingto think of this one style of
trolley that was really kind ofunique to the line.
Only a couple other trolleycompanies in the whole country
used them.
So it's the original.
It is at the HagerstownRoundhouse Museum, oh yep.
And then the last trolley, 171,which was one of those last two
(40:23):
to Traveling Frederick.
That one was saved as a cabinand is still a cabin, and I'm
not going to say where because Irespect the owner's privacy.
And for a while it was thoughtthat might've been 172, the last
trolley, but the design, thenumber of windows and the actual
fact you could still see someof the number matches 171.
Ayla Sparks (40:46):
So if someone were to want to become a trolley
conductor back in the day, howwould they go about learning
that?
To become a trolley conductorback in the day, how would they
go about learning that?
Rueben Moss (40:55):
Well it's actually not that difficult and there are
a number of museums that youcan actually volunteer and learn
to do that today.
Oh wow, they're always seekingvolunteers for that.
But first you'd have to have anin with the company you could
apply.
Usually they'd need some goodreferences.
You could start at a fairlyyoung age.
(41:17):
I'm not sure what the youngestwould have been.
Usually you'd start working inthe shops or a handyman or
something small, unless you hada really good reference.
But you could.
You'd train as a trainee.
Basically they had a speciallittle badge.
(41:38):
I've only seen one of themsurviving in a private
collection of a student driver.
But they're really easy tooperate, surprisingly, because
there are only three maincontrols.
You've got switches and fusesand lights.
Ayla Sparks (41:53):
It's not like being a flight pilot today.
It's not like being a pilot.
Rueben Moss (41:56):
You have a reverser which basically chooses if
you're going forward orbackwards.
You have an air brake, maybe amanual or a manual brake, maybe
an air brake, depending on thetrolley.
The manual brake, when some ofthem, is the only way to control
stopping, but a lot of themhave an air brake, where that's
(42:17):
what's controlling your speedrather than a throttle.
And then you have the throttle,which just kind of clicks into
different notches.
So to drive a trolley, all youneed to learn how to do is judge
your own speed, provide thepower with the throttle and then
shut it off, let it glide andcontrol the speed with the brake
.
Okay, because the controllerjust takes and is like an
(42:41):
adjustable switch for like adimmer.
There are different sets ofpower that go to different
numbers of motors and resistorbanks on the bottom of the
trolley, a lot of technicalelectrical equipment to reduce
the amount of power going to themotors, and so you're just
giving power, kind of like yousee with modern electric cars
(43:04):
you give it power, it goes.
So you don't need to constantlybe giving it power.
You just give it enough powerto get going, let it glide for a
while and then give it a little, rather than driving a car
where you're constantly puttingyour foot on the pedal.
Ayla Sparks (43:18):
Would you have needed a book like this?
Rueben Moss (43:20):
No, the book that I have here actually belonged to
a gentleman named Thomas Holler.
He was one of the founders ofthe Frederick and Middletown
Railway and this book was partof his private library.
It's got his stamp in it.
It came to us just a couple ofyears ago from the collection of
a gentleman named Carol James,who I'll give a little more
detail on him in a moment.
(43:41):
But the book was.
It's a manual from 1893 on thetechnical aspects of starting a
trolley line.
Ayla Sparks (43:50):
Oh, wow.
Rueben Moss (43:51):
So this little book is a reference guide that would
have been used while they werebuilding the Frederick Trolley
System, so it's really themanual that he at least would
have used.
I'm sure some of the othergentlemen may have had copies of
the same book, and ThomasHaller his name pops up from
time to time.
He was one of the founders.
He was involved into the 1920sso at least 30 years and spent a
(44:15):
lot of that time as the companytreasurer, I believe, and so
it's fascinating to have thisbook that shows how to start a
trolley line.
That belonged to one of theguys that started the trolley
line, and hopefully we'll beable to get it scanned here soon
so that you can actually readthrough it.
It's a little bit delicate now.
Ayla Sparks (44:35):
I can imagine how old is it.
When was it written?
Rueben Moss (44:37):
1893, which was when they started fundraising.
To put things into perspectiveagain, frank Sprague's first
successful passenger trolleyservice in Richmond, virginia,
was 1888.
So this is the first five yearsof practical trolleys.
This book was written for thehundreds of startup trolley
(44:58):
companies, and a lot of thetrolley companies were already
failing because you needed a lotof money, a lot of investment.
So the fact that the littlecompany here survived is
significant.
There was nearby Martinsburg.
West Virginia had a trolleysystem that started in the early
1890s and by the time 1896rolled around they had already
gone out of business.
So three of their trolley carsactually became the first three
(45:21):
to serve in Hagerstownsecondhand.
Ayla Sparks (45:24):
So hopefully this piece will you know relatively
as soon as funding will allow,be able to be part of your
archive that people can access.
Yes, but we also do haveanother artifact that you can
see if you do come to the museum.
Rueben Moss (45:38):
Yes, so we have.
I like to refer to it as thebig piece in reference to the
big piece of the Titanic thatwas brought up that people think
about if you think of Titanicexhibits.
The gentleman named Carol Jameswe also got the book from his
collection was a radio DJ.
He was born in Frederick, grewup in Hagerstown right along the
trolley line.
(45:58):
His father worked for thetrolley company that had become
the power company by then,potomac Edison, and he was just
fascinated by the trolleys.
But he grew up and gotinterested in radio a little bit
more.
So instead of following hisfather's footsteps, he started
working for the local radiostation.
He was able to provide abroadcast for the Hagerstown
(46:20):
radio station WJEJ, from aboardthe last trolley between
Frederick and Thurmont, which isone of the QR codes in our
museum exhibit.
You can actually listen to thatfull 18-minute broadcast that
he put out the next day.
But he kept his love of trolleysand, as he grew more famous, 10
years after the broadcast fromthe last trolley he had gotten a
(46:44):
job as a DJ in Washington DCwhere he threw a connection with
a flight attendant, managed toget a hold of an English copy of
a record from a band thatnobody had heard of or to get a
hold of an English copy of arecord from a band that nobody
had heard of or was starting tohear of, known as the Beatles,
and played one of their songs onhis radio broadcast a little
bit before the Sullivan showrelease.
(47:04):
So originally the Beatlesstudio was very angry with him.
People weren't supposed to hearthe Beatles yet.
It wasosed to be this big EdSullivan release and suddenly
the DC area had heard them andso he was going to get in
trouble for it.
And then they realized hisbroadcast had actually made the
Beatles suddenly popular and ithelped grow the local interest.
(47:25):
So instead of getting introuble, when the Fab Four came
and started their American tourafter the Sullivan show, he got
to be the first radio DJ tointerview them live on the air
in the United States rightbefore their concert in DC.
But all this time he wascollecting trolley things still.
So he was still interested inthe Hagerstown and Frederick
Living in Silver Springs.
(47:46):
He was also interested in theDC and the Baltimore trolleys,
got this collection together andin his later years after he
retired, he started puttingtogether local broadcast
documentaries.
He had a slideshow that youcould buy a copy of the
slideshow and have it shipped toyou anywhere in the country and
you could show it to yourrailroad club with his narration
.
Eventually he turned that intoa documentary in 1994, made it
(48:08):
commercially available andunfortunately passed away three
years later.
But it's the only documentaryabout the trolley system.
Made it commercially availableand unfortunately passed away
three years later, but it's theonly documentary about the
trolley system and it introduceda whole new generation to the
history of the trolley inconjunction with the Trolley
Festival that started that sameyear.
So he and Donald Easterday, Ifeel, are significantly
responsible for the reason somany people still know about the
(48:30):
trolley line.
So after he passed away, notmuch was known about what
happened to his collection andso a couple of years ago found
an item on eBay that just lookeda little interesting, contacted
the seller, found out that itwas from his collection and his
widow, who had remarried since,wasn't sure what to do with
other items, and so we ended upbuying that item, or one of our
(48:54):
supporters bought the item anddonated it to us and a lot of
the other things from hiscollection she donated to us
directly and they make up anumber of the items in the
museum now, as well as quite anumber of items in the archives,
including the book, and amongthem were some items from
Trolley 172, which he even saysin the documentary was his
(49:16):
favorite trolley.
We have an original bell and anoriginal whistle on display,
but the big piece is the largestsurviving piece and that is one
of the original doors.
We have it displayed so that wecan demonstrate its
accordion-like opening andclosing function.
I love the fact that we have itand the book because they're
kind of bookend pieces.
(49:36):
The book talks about the startof the trolley line, but the
door is the end.
This was the door that so manypassengers climbed aboard the
trolley and then climbed offthrough on the last trip.
It was the last trolley thatthey bought new.
It was the most powerfultrolley they had ever operated
and it just was something peopleuse day in and day out.
(49:59):
It's got a brass handle thatwas used as kind of the stair
rail and you can see just howpolished it is.
We haven't polished it.
That's from all the peopleusing it year after year to
climb up the steps onto thetrolley and you can see that or
you can demonstrate it.
Let kids pull on the handle tosee how it latches.
It's just a piece of thetrolley that you see in so many
(50:23):
photos and has such asignificant part on several of
the lines.
Well, it's perfect because youhave kind of the initial, the
beginning and then the end, yeah, the bookend, and if you would
like to see the kind of theinitial, the beginning and then
the end yeah, the bookend items,and if you would like to see
the rest of the story in themiddle, then you should
definitely come to the museum.
Absolutely.
There are quite a number ofexhibits, a lot of photos,
(50:44):
dioramas, maps, a number ofartifacts.
Ayla Sparks (50:46):
While you're in there, you can actually hear.
Rueben Moss (50:48):
You can hear audio recordings of the trolleys as
they were operating in the 1950s.
There was a gentleman fromWisconsin that came and spent
some time recording several ofthe trolleys, and so we have
those records playing in thebackground.
I'm actually going to beworking on an edit of it where
it's not the original clipsbecause it has some horns that
(51:10):
were added later afterBoonesboro service.
So you'll have the originalrecordings, but it will be put
together in such a way that it'sas if you were listening to the
trolleys as they're coming andgoing outside.
So for now we're just playingthe records as is.
Eventually that will change alittle bit.
But, it'll still be the originalsounds.
Ayla Sparks (51:28):
Well, it's very exciting.
Rueben Moss (51:29):
You guys have a lot of good things and if you come
visit this one, in the very,very near future, right next
door is going to be the NationalRoad Museum, which I'm involved
with that as well.
So it's exciting that twostories really mesh together and
it's exciting to have twomuseums that have such an
interesting and important impacton transportation, both locally
(51:50):
and telling the story ofsimilar companies and roads and
railroads throughout the country, all as kind of a cross-section
here in the middle of Maryland.
Ayla Sparks (51:59):
Middle of Boonesboro.
Rueben Moss (52:00):
Middle of Boonesboro.
Ayla Sparks (52:02):
Well, thank you so much for sharing with us all the
information about trolleys.
Who knew I didn't?
Rueben Moss (52:07):
Yeah, there is so much more in transportation
history than people realize andit impacted life for so many
people more than anyone canimagine.
We take transportation forgranted now, but it is a drastic
part of our development.
Ayla Sparks (52:23):
As a culture.
Economic growth yes, and as aculture.
Yeah Well, thank you so muchThank you.
Thank you so much for tuning inand supporting Curator's Choice,
a Mighty Oak Media production.
If you enjoyed the show, pleaseconsider subscribing and rating
the show on Apple Podcasts,spotify, youtube or wherever you
get your podcasts.
(52:44):
If you love a museum and wouldlike to hear it featured in an
episode, shoot me a message atCuratorchoicepodcast at gmailcom
.
I'll do my best to reach outand see if I can get them to be
on the show.
You can also view articles,artifacts and more by following
us on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks for listening toCurator's Choice, a podcast for
(53:05):
history nerds and museum lovers.
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