Popular Science Monthly 



421 



An Elevated Road Which Tried to 

 Outstrip a Town 



INTERESTING bits of history some- 

 times lie behind big projects — the 

 motives that inspired the undertakings, 

 the difficulties that were encountered in 

 the promotion of the work and various 

 other things that either record success 

 or failure. 



In Sioux City in 1890 was built the 

 third elevated railway in the United 

 States. Also Sioux City is said by many 

 to have had the first electrical elevated 

 railroad in the United States. 



night. The elevated railroad was one of 

 the "boom" products. Like other pro- 

 jects it fell during the panic of 1893. 

 But unlike numerous other undertakings 

 of magnitude it was not abandoned after 

 the crash, which blighted the dreams of 

 hundreds of men. although at that time 

 it went into the hands of a receiver. 



The men who built it believed, of 

 course, that it would be used permanent- 

 ly. The suburb could have been reached 

 as well by surface lines as now — but the 

 purpose was to shorten the distance by 

 building an elevated line which would 



What remains in Sioux City, Iowa, of the elevated railroad that ' ■:■ to build than 



the suburb it served was worth. The railroad actually ran during the "boom" days of the 

 80's, but Sioux City, with thirty thousand inhabitants, finally decided she did not need it 



It was not necessity that prompted the 

 building of an elevated railway in Sioux 

 City; it was the desire to develop farm 

 land into a suburb of what was destined 

 some day to be the great commercial cen- 

 ter of the west. The company collapsed 

 a few years later, but endured long 

 enough to accomplish its one aim — to 

 convert a strip of farm land into a 

 suburb. 



In reality Sioux City grew during the 

 years of 1880 and 1893 to a size far out 

 of proportion to the development of its 

 trade territory. The slogan appeared to 

 be: "Build the city first!" instead of per- 

 mitting the city to expand as the indus- 

 tries of agriculture and cattle-raising 

 expanded. 



Sioux City was in the midst of a 

 "boom" l)etween the years of 1880 and 

 1893. Buildings sprang up within a 



obviate all railroad crossings. 



The elevated road, proper, was about 

 two miles in length. To this was added 

 about three miles of surface lines. The 

 cost of construction for the five miles 

 of railway was $586,000. 



On December 7, 1889, the contract for 

 construction work was awarded. Fin- 

 ished within a period of six months, it 

 was used as a steam road until May 5, 

 1893, when one of the l^uilders and in- 

 corporators was appointed receiver. No 

 reverses of importance were experienced 

 by those who financed the work or the 

 construction company. In the rush ev- 

 erything apparently was forgotten. When 

 the panic was precipitated the lionding 

 companies realized their mistake. There 

 had lieen no demand for such a road in 

 a city that contained only about thirt\- 

 thousand inhabitants. 



