WAUPACA COUNTY POST

10 September 1925

 

 

WAUPACA OWES HOMAGE TO ITS STREET CARS

 

We May Now Reflect On Part Played By Them

In Popularizing Our Summer Resorts

 

The oldest transportation system in Waupaca County is now no more.  Like the duck in winter which swims about the edges of its pond to keep the ice from closing in, each trip is shorter, for with each trip now the Waupaca street car takes up a few more rails, shortening the track until soon it will be altogether taken up, even to the car barns.  The city council has decided that the tracks must come up, and the 15th of September is the date on which the last rail must be pulled and off the streets.

 

Although the need of a street railway from Waupaca to the lakes has been done away with, since the pre-eminence of motor car transportation, the Waupaca Electric Railway was once a most important link between Waupaca and the “Killarneys of America,” as the beautiful chain of lakes is so fittingly called.  Thus it is not amiss to tell something of the history of the line.

 

Irving P. Lord and W. B. Baker purchased the majority stock of the Waupaca Electric Light Company in 1899, at the same time obtaining a franchise to operate an electric railway from the Soo depot in Waupaca to the Wisconsin Veteran’s Home.  Later the road was carried on to Grand View.

 

On July 4, 1899, the road was completed, an excursion trip was run, and cars were running on regular schedule on July 17 of that year.  The road soon became increasingly popular and became one of the factors which enabled summer visitors to reach Waupaca’s favorite resort at the Chain o’ Lakes, as well as serving as a means of rapid transit between the Veteran’s Home and this city.

 

At times the road was exceedingly popular as a means of transporting the holiday crowds to picnic grounds.  On Aug. 20, 1907, the State E.F.U. picnic was held in this city and on that day the street cars carried 4,844 passengers, some of the fares being the minimum charge of five cents and others being the maximum charge of ten cents from Waupaca to Grand View hotel on the shore of Rainbow lake.  The total receipt in fares on that day and night were $479l90.  While this is the big record day for the Waupaca Electric Railway, on several other occasions the total receipts have exceeded $200 a day and in the years before the World War $100 was considered an ordinary day’s receipts.

 

Today the street car has been superseded by its swifter rival, the motor car, and it is doomed to pass away, having served its time, even as the livery barns, the blacksmith shops, the windmills, and other remnants of an earlier day are succeeded by more efficient or swifter vehicles of an industrial day where speed is an aim, efficiency is a necessity, specialization is a means, and money is the sole goal.