Traces of Columbia’s mass transit history are being uncovered and rediscovered on the city’s northern edge.
Sections of railway for the city’s trolley system, which operated from the mid-1880s to the late 1920s, recently were unearthed during road work along Main Street near Elmwood Avenue.
“They’re pretty much the old trolley tracks,” Dana Higgins, Columbia assistant engineer for construction, said of the lines that once were part of the city’s mass transit system.
Columbia’s trolleys initially were pulled by horses. In May 1893, however, they were converted to electric power, Columbia historian John Hammond Moore writes in “Columbia & Richland County,” a book chronicling development from 1740 to 1990.
The system served several areas, the book notes, including the State Fairgrounds, the Main Street business district and Columbia’s two railroad depots.
Traces of Columbia’s mass transit history are being uncovered and rediscovered on the city’s northern edge.
Sections of railway for the city’s trolley system, which operated from the mid-1880s to the late 1920s, recently were unearthed during road work along Main Street near Elmwood Avenue.
“They’re pretty much the old trolley tracks,” Dana Higgins, Columbia assistant engineer for construction, said of the lines that once were part of the city’s mass transit system.
Columbia’s trolleys initially were pulled by horses. In May 1893, however, they were converted to electric power, Columbia historian John Hammond Moore writes in “Columbia & Richland County,” a book chronicling development from 1740 to 1990.
The system served several areas, the book notes, including the State Fairgrounds, the Main Street business district and Columbia’s two railroad depots.
I never knew about those. Neat!
Keir
http://www.gciagents.com/Keir.html