2001 Board of Directors
President David H. Lippincott
VP and Executive Director H. Howard Noble
Secretary George G. Rothwell
Treasurer James A. Thieme
Asst. Treasurer Donald S. Gage

All articles are subject to editing.

New Orleans electric streetcars were made famous by the Tennessee Williams play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” By 1951, the New Orleans Public Service, Inc. (NOPSI), eliminated several streetcar routes including the famous “Desire Line.” Despite some public opposition, all streetcar lines in New Orleans were abandoned except for one.  Preserved and continually operated were the Perley Thomas streetcars on St. Charles Avenue.

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was founded in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne.  He named it for the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France. Nicknamed the Crescent City, New Orleans was originally built on the banks of a crescent-shaped curve in the Mississippi River just south of Lake Pontchartrain.

As a result of European wars, France lost New Orleans and most of Louisiana to Spain in 1763, only to reacquire it sometime later.  Louisiana had a population of only 10,000 when the French sold it to the United States.  Not until 1812, however, did Louisiana join the Union as a state. Steamboat operation in 1812 signified the beginning of industrial boom times.  New York City's seaport was the only U.S. shipping port larger than New Orleans.

The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad introduced rail mass transit along what later became known as the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line in 1835. Transit cars pulled by steam locomotives connected downtown New Orleans from Canal Street to the “faubourgs,” or suburbs. The original five mile rail line was built to the resort community of Carrollton, later annexed by the city. The Crescent City's population reached 100,000 by 1840. Four street railways were in place by 1860.  Other transit companies operated horse and mule drawn streetcars called “omnibuses.”

New Orleans was captured in 1862 by the Union Army during the American Civil War.  At the “Battle of Liberty Place,” omnibuses were used to buttress Confederate barricades.  Infuriated citizens fought police to protest the Union occupation of the city, a battle made famous by the high number of casualties.

Following the Civil War, the detestable steam locomotives on the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad were replaced with less efficient, but cleaner and quieter horse power. Attempts to replace the obsolete horses led to several, and sometimes unusual experiments in motive power. Examples included ammonia-powered engines, steam dummy engines (locomotives disguised to look like streetcars), overhead cable cars (an elaborately hung moving cable located above the street rather than under it), and battery operated cars.

War-torn New Orleans was in a period of rebuilding at this time.  The local Mississippi River channel was deepened in 1877, followed by the establishment of a railroad hub in 1883. In anticipation of street railway electrification, the city’s first electric streetcars were put on display during the 1884-1885 New Orleans Cotton Centennial Exposition. More than 20 years would pass before horse cars were finally replaced on the New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad. A silver spike was driven on July 13, 1890, to dedicate the beginning of electric street railway construction.

February 1, 1893, marked the beginning of the Crescent City’s first overhead wire electric streetcar service.  The first cars purchased for the St. Charles Avenue line were built by the St. Louis Car Company in Missouri. Other local street railways converted to electric power or built new electrified lines. Eventually, New Orleans had over 28 electric streetcar routes, which totaled 225 miles of track.

In 1902, the city’s four electric street railways, including the New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad, consolidated to form the New Orleans Railways Company.  Each railroad retained its separate ownership until 1922 when they were purchased, along with the city's bus lines, by the newly chartered New Orleans Public Service, Inc. (NOPSI).  The city’s electric power companies were also reorganized under NOPSI. Perley Thomas electric streetcars were purchased to modernize local streetcar operations.

New 48-foot long double-trucked electric streetcars were designed and built between 1923 and 1924 by the Perley A. Thomas Car Company in High Point, North Carolina. These 52-seat cars were designed to have a motorman for operations and a conductor to collect fares or offer assistance. Streetcar service reached its peak in 1926 when 148 million people were riding the transit company’s 26 streetcar lines.

A severe labor strike in 1929, compounded by the Great Depression, began a decline that cost the street railway an annual 40 million riders. Streetcar lines throughout the city were gradually being replaced with buses. During World War II, when the Crescent City's population was 490,000, women played one of many significant wartime roles. As the men left to fight overseas, the street railway hired women to be “conductorettes.” They temporarily replaced male conductors.

NOPSI spent $3.5 million to beautify Canal Street back in 1930. It was one of America's most famous broad boulevards.  Wealthy Americans settled in New Orleans outside of the Vieux Carre, the famous French and Spanish-influenced French Quarter, into what became known as the Garden District.  Canal Street separated the French Quarter from the Garden District, also known as the “American Quarter.” When the United States purchased the City of New Orleans from France in 1803, Canal Street became the dividing line between the French Quarter’s “downtown” Creole culture and the newly-arrived and somewhat unwelcome “uptown” American society. Despite protest, the Crescent City’s last streetcar route to be phased out was the Canal Street Line in 1964.

With a surplus of electric streetcars, NOPSI sold or donated eleven Perley Thomas cars to various museums throughout the United States. No more cars were to be sold or given away as the only remaining streetcar line in New Orleans, the 13-mile St. Charles Avenue line, gained in historical notoriety.

In the heart of the Garden District electric streetcars continued to operate. They were reworked and refinished in 1965, to “better than new” condition.  Although historically preserved, the Perley Thomas cars lost their conductors to automatic coin machines and operator-controlled doors during the mid-1970s. In 1973, the St. Charles Avenue Electric Streetcar Line was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources
New Orleans Regional Transit Authority. “Historical Brief,” St. Charles Streetcar Line, (no date), http://www.regionaltransit.org/schisbrf.html.

The Last Line:  A Streetcar Named St. Charles. (New Orleans: August Perez and Assoc.), 1972.§