What goes around ... a look back at streetcars

Tom Lowry needed a loan -- again. He often was short on cash to build his Twin Cities streetcar company and to buy more real estate. This time, in about 1890, he went to New York City to hit on financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

Morgan greeted him with a stern look and this comment: "Young man, I am not accustomed to doing business with anyone who has whiskey on his breath, especially at 10 o'clock in the morning."

Legend has it that Lowry replied, "Mr. Morgan, I beg your pardon, but to tell you the truth, it never occurred to me that I could face a man of your prominence without just a touch of Irish courage."

Not only did he get the money, but the two men became good friends.

Another time, in the 1870s, Lowry's wife, Beatrice (gorgeous and from a rich family), returned home from shopping and was met on her doorstep by a white-lipped butler. She walked into the parlor of her Minneapolis mansion and saw it completely stripped of its contents. Gone were the carpets, the tapestries, the draperies, the paintings, the ottomans, the settees and the Tiffany lamps.

Timeline: From streetcar to light rail (requires flash plug-in)When Tom Lowry got home a little later, an agitated wife confronted him. Their grandson Goodrich Lowry speculated in his book, "Streetcar Man," that Tom had found a deal he couldn't refuse: "To him it was the most natural thing in the world to swap the contents of a drawing room. . . . After all, Mrs. Lowry could always have the drawing room refurnished by Bradstreet's -- on credit, of course."

That was wheeler-dealer Lowry, so much associated with his streetcars that some Twin Cities people called the trolleys "Tom Lowrys."

He started with little horse-drawn streetcars. Horses, however, made for messy streets (at a time when women wore street-length dresses), and they were expensive to feed and care for.

You can credit Lowry with foresight. After he had control of the Minneapolis streetcars, he bought out St. Paul's in 1884. In their early years, the two systems had little in common but dismal financial records. The cities were separated by five miles of open country. He must have believed the Twin Cities would someday grow together.

Then came the new technology of electric streetcars (also called trolleys). As soon as the frost left the ground in 1890, a crew of 1,200 men in Minneapolis and 1,200 in St. Paul built a new transportation system. They laid tracks and strung trolley wires supported by poles in the middle of streets. Powerhouses were built. The interurban line opened in December, linking the business districts of the two cities via Washington and University avenues.

And Lowry's company was broke -- again.

Fortunately for him, trolleys became fashionable, not only for riding to work but for picnic excursions to White Bear Lake to the east and Excelsior to the west. By 1906, the company's steamboats sailed on Lake Minnetonka in summer. The boats not only took fun-seekers to the Big Island Amusement Park; they also connected passengers with trolleys that took them to work in town.

Lowry's risk-taking and efficient management paid off. As a token of his wealth, he had a streetcar built just for him, with mahogany paneling and upholstered furniture. He delighted in carrying notable visitors such as Teddy Roosevelt and William McKinley on sightseeing tours of the Twin Cities.

Tom Lowry died of tuberculosis in 1909. For five minutes during his funeral, every streetcar in the Twin Cities stood still.

Enter the automobile

So if the streetcars were excellent, why didn't they survive? Why is Minneapolis now starting over with the fancy streetcars known as light rail transit?

Part of the answer lies with national transportation trends. Already in the 1920s, a swelling fleet of cars and trucks filled the streets. All Minnesota's streetcar systems, except those in the Twin Cities, were abandoned in the Depression. By World War II, other forms of transportation were replacing trolleys in most major U.S. cities.

Another reason for tearing apart the streetcar lines is juicier. In one word: fraud. It was widely said that it took more than 50 years to build Lowry's streetcar system and just five years for others to tear it down.

Some of those who did the tearing down went to prison after being found guilty in federal court of million-dollar fraud against the transit system. They were said to have accepted payoffs for selling Twin City Rapid Transit Co. scrap metal, cable and 400 miles of track below market price. They also defrauded the company of more than $250,000 in the sale of 91 streetcars to Mexico City.

It was the scandal of the times, partly because the state's most notorious gangster was involved. Isadore Blumenfeld, known as Kid Cann, owned 16 percent of the company's stock.

Another was Fred Ossanna, former company president. It was a long fall for him. He had been a triumphant public figure the last day the trolleys ran -- June 18, 1954, a rainy, gloomy day. Television news, in its infancy, showed Ossanna and other streetcar officials torching wooden trolley cars, joyfully burning them to recover scrap metal. Streetcars were passé; buses ruled.

Blumenfeld, the headlines screamed, was found not guilty of all 10 counts of mail fraud and conspiracy. The other five were convicted on some of the charges. Ossanna went to prison.

Peg Meier is at

pmeier@startribune.com.