Public transportation still important 75 years after trolleys shut down

Seventy-five years ago today, the trolley system owned by Missouri Utilities Co. made its final run through Cape Girardeau.

The system was shut down after residents decided it was a nuisance that had long since served its purpose, according to Southeast Missourian archives.

Responding to a petition signed by about 1,500 people, the Cape Girardeau City Council asked the Missouri Public Service Commission to shut down the trolley system. Missouri Utilities agreed with the request, and in less than two weeks the courts retired the system, which operated as the Cape Girardeau-Jackson Interurban Railway Co.

Although horse- and mule-drawn trolleys had operated in the city since 1895, it was the formation of the Cape Girardeau-Jackson Interurban Railway Co. 10 years later that brought the new technology of electric-motor cars to town.

The name reflected the optimism of the original stockholders that trolley service would eventually extend to Jackson, but the company never was profitable enough to do that, and in December 1913 it was sold to the Power and Light Co. of St. Louis, which later became Missouri Utilities.

Under new ownership, the trolley reached a peak in popularity in 1922, with more than 37,000 passengers during June alone. But two years later, with mass production of automobiles making them more affordable, business was cut in half.

In May 1934, as the company was on its last legs, only 4,192 people rode the trolley. Residents saw the trolley and its rails as inconveniences to auto traffic and wanted them to go away. Nearly five years into the Great Depression, the Cape Girardeau-Jackson Interurban Railway Co. gave up without a fight, with its last day of operation as Aug. 10, 1934, according to the archives.

Today, the public transportation needs of the area are met by the Cape Girardeau County Transit Authority, which operates a fleet of taxis and three city buses on fixed routes.

The authority couldn't survive on fare revenue alone, "not unless you could charge enough, and the market won't let you do that," said transit authority executive director Tom Mogelnicki.

Fares and advertising revenue from signage on the fleet accounts for only about half of the operating costs of the authority. The remainder, Mogelnicki said, comes from a combination of state and federal grants and from the Cape Girardeau County Senior Citizens Services Fund Board.

While waning demand doomed the trolley, the transit authority is seeing a growing demand for its services.

When the transit authority began fixed-route bus operations in 2000, it operated two buses on a schedule of 40 stops. Today, demand has necessitated the addition of a third bus and another 20 stops. Mogelnicki estimates that about 600 people per week ride the fixed-route buses, and said the system will handle about 140,000 passengers this year, taxis included. That number is up from about 90,000 two years ago.

With senior citizens accounting for about two-thirds of the passengers, Mogelnicki said, a continually expanding elderly population means the growth in demand should continue for a long time.

As for public transportation in Cape Girardeau County 75 years from today, "I think fixed bus routes will be expanded throughout the county," Mogelnicki said. "Perhaps as far as Procter & Gamble."

Trolley trivia

• The trolley route in 1906 ran a loop that included Main Street on the east, Independence Street on the south, Spanish Street on the west and Broadway on the north.
• Trolley routes were eventually expanded westward to what is now Capaha Park, including stops on Henderson Avenue, Normal Avenue, William Street, Pacific Street, West End Boulevard and Good Hope Street, making the total route four miles.
• The ornamental medians today that divide traffic on West End Boulevard and Normal Avenue are a result of efforts to conceal trolley tracks and switches after the system was closed down.
• Trolley rides were a popular means of cooling off on hot summer evenings. Special open air "summer cars" were equipped with seats that allowed the breeze to pass through the seat backs for added ventilation.
• In September 1922 vandals caused an accident by greasing the tracks at the intersection of Henderson and Normal avenues.

Source: Southeast Missourian archives