End of the Tracks
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End of the Tracks |
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By
1916, the Chippewa Valley Electric Railway was only a miniscule part in a massive
power company. Over the next ten years, the railway and the company to which
it belonged suffered a series of setbacks that ultimately led to the demise
of the electric railway. There was no one factor that led to the demise of the
Chippewa Valley Electric Railway. Instead, multiple issues came together to
seal the fate of the company on September 1st, 1926.
As Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Company continued to expand, buying up utilities and building power lines and dam sites, it finally overextended itself in 1916. In that year, the company tackled the Wissota Dam Project—a venture that would ruin the finances of the entire corporation.1 The Wissota Dam was a large dam built across the Chippewa River. The dam would provide enough electricity to be used by the company itself with extra to be sold to companies in Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Wissota Dam cost three times its expected price ($6.5 million instead of $2.0 million)2 and did not put out the amount of electricity predicted.
Due to financial debts accrued by building the Wissota Dam and other sites, W.M.L.P.C. was forced to borrow from neighboring companies. The logical choice was Northern States Power Company of Minnesota (NSP Minnesota)—the company with which W.M.L.P.C. had power supply contracts. Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Company borrowed from NSP until Kelsey and Brewer could not take it any longer and sold the company to NSP Minnesota in July of 1923.
Meanwhile, the public transportation industry saw a new arrival: the motor bus. The Motor Bus Company organized and began operation in Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire by 1920.3 James W. Agnew, Frank W. Agnew, Robert J. Agnew, Edward J. Willete, and Frank W. Willete were the owners. Gail Willi, daughter of James Agnew, remembered her father driving the motor bus to Wausau. Smiling, she recalled that her first word was not “bus” as her father hoped, but “streetcar.”4
Automobiles had also made an appearance in Chippewa County as early as 1914 when 557 automobiles were registered there.5 Over the next 13 years, automobile use increased among the populace [see Vehicle Registration Records].
Interestingly, passenger numbers leveled off around 600,000 per year between 1919 and 1924 while streetcar operational hours and streetcar miles rose.6 Though ridership did not greatly decline, rising operating expenses sealed the railway’s fate.
Within three years, NSP came to see Appleyard’s dream as a waste and a drag on the company. The railway had been losing money since 1921,7 and it was finally decided that it should be dismantled. Just after midnight, in the early morning of September 1st, 1926, the last streetcar ran the interurban tracks, never to return [Chippewa Herald].8
Today, little remains of what was once a thriving means of transportation. This vital link has been purged from the city streets it once served and is all but forgotten by those who remember the streetcar’s bell and “clickety-clack” of trolley wheels on the tracks. There is, however, renewed interest in the electric railway as cities around the United States have found the need for clean, public transportation.
The subways of New York and the L-Train of Chicago are both remnants of the electric railway industry. So too is the trolley system that runs today in San Francisco. However, overall these electric railways have served and continue to serve cities with larger populations. Interurbans are few and far between. These systems could serve entire regions instead of single communities.
Perhaps, one day, the electric railway will return to Chippewa Falls and run an interurban line to the dreamscape that Arthur E. Appleyard had once envisioned.