From The Archives: Remembering Chattanooga’s Streetcar system

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – Before buses took over the job of moving Chattanoogans around town, the city had a thriving streetcar system.

Streetcars used electricity to power them instead of combustion engines.

When electricity became plentiful in the 19th century, several cities harnessed the new power for mass transportation.

The streetcar era in Tennessee ran from the 1880s until the 1930s.

Chattanooga started it’s first line in 1899.

Signal Mountain line going up Taft Highway/ SOURCE: Chattanooga Public Library – Paul A. Hiener Collection

But soon competing companies ran lines into neighborhoods, downtown, across the river and up both Signal and Lookout Mountains.

Eventually the Electric Light Company, Chattanooga Electric Railway Company, and Chattanooga Rapid Transit Company merged into the Chattanooga Railway and Light Company to run them all.

And they created the first major hydroelectric plant in Tennessee on the Ocoee River (Ocoee No. 1) to power the streetcar system.

The system connected Chattanooga to its surrounding communities as well.

Chattanoogan Jane Keefe recalls stories of her grandfather who was a streetcar conductor in East Lake.

He actually talked to a young President on his line.

Dwight Eisenhower regularly rode his car into town from the military base in Fort Oglethorpe in 1917.

Lt. Eisenhower was stationed here for three months and was a regular visitor into town.

But the streetcar dominance over transportation ended with labor trouble and the rise of internal combustion engine.

Buses began replacing streetcars across Tennessee in the 1920s.

The final cars serving Signal Mountain ended in 1934.

News 12 personality Luther Massingill grew up in the streetcar era.

In 1991, he looked back at those days with Linda Edwards.