MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA - NEWSPAPERS Transportion Progress - Columbus ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 Christine Thacker Transportion Progress Keeps Columbus Moving   By Ralph Willingham Ledger Staff Writer   "It's bad enough that machines are replacing us," the horses must have thought.     "What's worse is that we have to help them do it."   That's how things worked on the electric car line between Columbus and Phenix City in 1895. The Columbus, Railroad Co. had to lay tracks across bridges to connect the trolley lines, because the bridges couldn't stand the weight of electric lines. Horses pulled cars across the bridges to connect the route.   Actually, machines had started getting in the horses' way soon after 1866, when the Columbus Railroad Co. was chartered. A little dummy engine drew freight cars around Columbus, connecting with all roads entering the city and delivering freight to and from the stores and mills.   There was also a dummy line for passengers called the "Belt Line." Two small engines, the Wildwood and John Hill, ran on a seven-mile loop, burning coke instead of coal to eliminate smoke. During the week there was one passenger car, and two on Sunday, with a conductor for each car. The fare was 10 cents.   The route went down Broad Street past the old red brick Transfer Station, then on to Tenth Street, along Wynnton Road to the Wynnton School, past the Flournoy place, left across Seventeenth Street, north to Wildwood Park Station. It traveled where St. Elmo School now stands, back In a southwesterly direction, then due west through East Highlands and back into town via Fourth Avenue and Fourteenth Street to the Transfer Station.   The "Belt Line" was a favorite on Sunday afternoons. The passengers could get off at Wildwood Park for a few hours of boating and bathing in an artificial lake, or for a game In the baseball park. From 1909-1913, a "businessman's special" ran to the park every day during  baseball season so businessmen and others could get  to the game and back.   The electric trolley appeared in Columbus in 1890, it operated by the North Highland Railroad Co. The line ran from the North Highland Casino down Second  Avenue to Eleventh Street, where it made a sharp turn and ended at the old bell tower on Broadway.    After the Columbus Railroad Co. electrified Its lines in  1890, it began operating most trolley lines in the city and eventually absorbed the North Highland line. The firm's first electric street car appeared Jan. 26, 1895.   By 1900 east-west trolley lines ran on Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets. Lines stretched to all suburban areas, and there was a car along Broadway every two minutes.   When 14th Street steel bridge was completed in 1903, electric car tracks were laid to Phenix City and Girard. Passengers on the electric cars sat in enclosed boxcars in the winter and open bench cars in the summer. The motorman had to brave rain, heat or cold on the platform at  the front of the car.   As machines took to the streets,, the streets took to paving. The city completed a considerable paving effort In 1906, using a bitulithic process that was "smooth but not slippery, firm enough but not so hard as to injure the foot of horses," according to a newspaper account. The paving was done from Tenth to Fourth Streets; Eleventh Street from Board Street to Second Ayenue: Fourteenth and Thirteenth Streets from Broad to First; and Warren Street. Fourteenth Street was paved with brick.   By 1927 only two electric car lines remained in operation, because buses were more versatile. The Columbus Transporation Co. was formed in September 1924 to furnish bus service between Columbus and Phenix City. The Georgia Power Co., which by now owned the street car lines, operated a street railway in Columbus until 1936, when the bus system took over completely.   Even before Columbus Transportation got going, Howard Bus Co. was in operation, and still is today. It began with six buses in 1921, and today buses still traverse the route between Fort Benning and the Howard terminal at 1101 First Ave. There are 20 runs a day, one every 45 minutes.   Columbus Transporation remained in private hands and its buses served the city steadily until  1967, when declining passenger numbers made it unprofitable. The city finally bought the firm for $285,000 that year. For its ,money it got 52 buses, three cars, a shop, fixtures, the company's stock and two pieces of land at Seventeenth Street and Second Avenue. The name changed to Columbus Transportation System, and more lately to METRA.  Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger~Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978, S-31