What route did the Lake Harriet ‘Holly Trolley’ travel in the streetcar era?

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For many Twin Cities families, piling into a streetcar decked with garlands is a holiday tradition that endures — even in 2025.

For a few days in late November and early December, Santa boards the restored “Holly Trolley” that makes short runs on the rebuilt track from Minneapolis’ Linden Hills station.

A reader who has been wondering about the Holly Trolley wrote to the Strib’s audience-powered reporting project Curious Minnesota to ask about its real route in the streetcar era. “Where did it run?” she asked. “Did it actually go all the way downtown?”

It did — and much farther.

“What we’re running is the last surviving mile of the Como-Harriet line,” said Aaron Isaacs, a historian with the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, which operates the trolley along a piece of the old line’s right of way. “It was the longest line. And it was one of the very busiest.”

The Como-Harriet line once ran from downtown St. Paul, through Como Park to downtown Minneapolis and down past Lake Harriet before branching off in several different directions or continuing on to Hopkins, Isaacs said.

By then, it had been six years since the last of the Twin Cities’ horse-pulled streetcar routes had been converted to electricity, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. It cost a dime to ride the entire Como-Harriet route.

By 1904, the Como-Harriet line was so popular that riders petitioned the Minneapolis City Council for more frequent service, according to an article published in the Minneapolis Journal that August.

Besides the Linden Hills station (rebuilt in 1990) and the mile of reconstructed track, a few other remnants of the line still exist today.

“In Como Park, the Como Streetcar Station is still there, and right next to the streetcar station is a pedestrian bridge that was built by the streetcar company to get people across the tracks,” Isaacs said.

St. Paul Parks and Recreation maintains the old Como station and rents it out as an event venue. It also serves as a polling place.

In 1954, all streetcar service stopped. As that last ride approached, newspaper coverage was sentimental.

“Next week, the last of the city’s streetcars, the familiar yellow trolleys, reviled and blessed for 65 years, will rumble out of the city’s life, but not out of its memory,” wrote the Minneapolis Star. “They’ve got the big new buses now, and trolley tracks will be visible for a while, yet gathering rust, but somehow the streets will look mighty bare after June 19, the day the last streetcar makes its run.”

In Minneapolis, the Como-Harriet line was replaced by bus Route 6, Isaacs said. In turn, just recently, on Dec. 6, the new E Line bus rapid transit replaced Route 6.

In St. Paul, the Route 3 bus still travels a section of the old Como-Harriet line, he added.

Since 1971, Isaacs’ museum has been running restored streetcars on a portion of rebuilt track running between Lake Harriet and Bde Maka Ska. The museum also maintains another line in Excelsior.

“We get to give them an immersive experience. You know, they get to find out what it feels like,” Isaacs said. “We get people in smaller and smaller numbers who were alive when these things were running and remember it.”

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