Tuesday, January 4, 2022

FIERCE COMPETITION IN DENVER by Marisa Masterson

What was the competition that disrupted Denver in 1900? Silver? Gold? The ski industry? No, none of those.

Streetcars! The fight was over who would control the demand for public trasportation. By that year, the city had more than 100,000 people living there. This made the town too long to cross on foot. People wanted streetcars like the cities in the East.

In 1872, the Denver Horse Railroad Company built the city's first transit line. Still, it covered very little of Denver.

By 1890, nearly every block in the downtown area were covered by a streetcar. The problem was that there was more than one company. These streetcar businesses competed fiercely, so fiercely that one company even tore up another's rails to build theirs in the same spot.

This comeptition also marked a huge change in streetcars. The horse was disappearing. The new vehicles were powered by steam as well as cable cars powered by sunken cables.

In the novella I recently finished writing, my hero purchases a livery in Denver. The heroine laments her perspecitve husband investing in a livery when horses were rapidly disappearing as a means of transportation in the city.

Few customers visited the business. The Denver Tramway Company provided a way to travel around the city on its streetcars. The fact made her wonder why D. R. Parkhurst would buy a nearly obsolete concern. Hadn’t he been to Denver or even visited the livery and asked to view the books before he purchased it? Maybe he bought it like he acquired a bride—sight unseen.

Maggie mulled over that question as the days lengthened into a week. She’d been there seven days without word from her supposed groom. The former owner, Roland Devers, was a silent and grim man. She sensed goodness and kind intentions in him. He simply didn’t bother with small talk or much talk at all, really. He shrugged when she asked about Mr. Parkhurst. At her question of whether Parkhurst came in person to buy the livery, he only shook his head from side to side and went back to his forge.

The brief response did give her an answer to the gnawing question. Yes, the man hadn’t bothered to ask for the books or even see the livery before purchasing it. Well, that gave her all the reason she needed to refuse him when he finally appeared. She wouldn’t marry such a careless businessman. ( from A Match for Maggie)

The Denver Tramway Company emerged early in the century as the sole streetcar business in Denver. The company's success peaked in 1910 before a new competition took much of its riders away--the automobile.

Maggie Jorgensen knows an escaped criminal is stalking her. U.S. marshal Reg Parker has a solution--send her to Denver as a mail-order bride.

After his passionate kiss, Maggie is confused. Why would Reg send her to another man? And why is her Denver groom missing?

Friday, October 7, 2016

Street Car Etiquette (1889)

by Kristin Holt

I'm forever amused by American Victorian-era humor. The point of the historic newspaper article I'll share seems to be reached extra-well because of the dollop of humor. Ultimately, the purpose is evident. Good manners are always in style.

The following article, titled Street Car Etiquette appeared in the Fort Worth Daily Gazette of Fort Worth, Texas, on February 24, 1889, apparently having first run in the New York Sun.


1908 Postcard featuring the 1887 horse car on display in Manchester, New Hampshire. The FIRST horse car in the city. Labeled "Rapid Transit". Image: Public Domain, found on Wikipedia.

Horse-drawn cars such as the one on this Manchester postcard had been invented much earlier... Manchester was simply blessed with their first (apparently) in 1887. The following original patent drawing and details explain the unique (thus patented) and new arrangement of doors on the horse-drawn railway cars with the patent granted on September 4, 1860. While not a laughing matter, the patent solves a similar problem--"the usual annoyances now occasioned by passengers standing outside, and blocking the passageway". A little more--including parting with the need for a conductor (reference etiquette in the newspaper article)--is included below the patent image.

Patent No. 29,882 issued to J. Harris, Jr. on September 4, 1860. Source: Google.

Taken from the detail contained within the patent (application and final document), also courtesy of Google.

"The doors a, a, [see fig 2] when closed, are at an obtuse angle with a plane parallel to the end of the car, or at any angle which increases the facilities of passengers on their entrance and exit, and the usual annoyances now occasioned by passengers standing outside, and blocking the passageway, is obviated. By the present mode of constructing platforms, they extend from side to side entirely across the car, and the doors slide open at right angles to the sides. I construct my car in any of the known forms, except the platforms, doors and doorways. The ends of my car are constructed viz., the greater portion of the platforms are inclosed [sic], thus making the interior more spacious, and economizing seat room for additional passengers, as represented by the letters c, c, on Fig. 2. I have two entrances and two doorways, or platforms, one at each end of the car, their relative position being diagonal. Consequently, no accident can occur to passengers, from cars coming in an opposite direction, as the peculiar construction of the doors and platforms oblige the passengers to enter and leave, on the outside or right hand of either rail track.

The doors are controlled by the driver by means of foot straps extending from the door, through the ear and under his foot. This arrangement is not adopted in cars at present, where the horses are made to change from end to end, in reversing the draft of the car.

By the above mentioned improvements we are successfully enabled to dispense with the attendance of a conductor." [underline and bold added, as are comments in square brackets]

Apparently human nature hadn't changed much (nor the aggravations caused by public transportation) from 1860 to 1889... and I'd wager a guess that commuters on today's trains and light rail would say nothing's much different in 2016. Except for a few more riders on a few more vehicles of public transportation on a few more rails and a few more roads. Ultimately, polished manners and politeness are as essential--if not more so--today than they were 127 years ago.

Perhaps humor is the best way to respond to such aggravations and breaches of etiquette, then or now.

May I share a bit more Victorian-era humor with you?

Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author writes Sweet Victorian Romance set in the American West. She writes frequent articles about the nineteenth century American west--every subject of possible interest to readers and amateur historians. She contributes monthly to Sweet Americana Sweethearts (first Friday of each month) and Romancing the Genres (third Tuesday of each month).

Sweet Romance Appropriate for All Audiences

Pages