A Streetcar Thought Undesirable
Date Posted: January 4, 2020
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, News,
From Railway Age: St. Louis’s ill-fated Loop Trolley rolled along Delmar Boulevard for the last time on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. It died in infancy, at the chronological age of 13 months and 14 days, but an actual service life of only 235 days. While it is difficult to determine the actual cause of death, it appears that the little streetcar that couldn’t never had a chance.
It was an unwanted child whose birth was delayed for years, and who suffered from neglect, ill health, destitution and just plan bad luck during its pitifully short life. Ironically, the line may still get another chance to live, if circumstances allow that.
The Loop Trolley ran along a 2.2-mile route on Delmar Boulevard and DeBaliviere Avenue, from University City (part of adjoining St. Louis County) to Forest Park, the home of the 1904 World’s Fair, as well as the Missouri History Museum and other similar institutions today.
It was a street-running line in traditional street railway style for part of the run; the other part ran on a single track in the median of Delmar Boulevard. It ran on the part of the street known as the Delmar Loop, an upscale enclave near Washington University—hence the name of the line.
Delmar Boulevard has witnessed a lot of history, for better or worse, on its way west from Downtown St. Louis. Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime, lived there for a few years after 1900 and wrote some of his greatest music in the apartment he rented above a storefront.
That apartment is now preserved as a house museum. Further west lies the Central West End, one of the city’s most prosperous and historic neighborhoods, but that part of the street is also known as the “Delmar Divide,” a stark boundary that has highlighted race and class distinctions in the Mound City for decades.
St. Louis streetcar on Grand Avenue in the theater district in the 1960s.
The Wabash Railroad had a station in the Loop area, Delmar Station, in operation from 1929 until 1970. Trains like the City of St. Louis, Blue Bird and Wabash Cannon Ball (named after the song, and not the other way around) stopped on their way to or from places like Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha and Detroit. The station sits empty today, near a MetroLink light rail stop (MetroLink uses the former Wabash right-of-way) and former transfer location for the Loop Trolley when it was running.
‘The Duke of Delmar’
Building the line seemed like a good idea at the time when the neighborhood’s benefactor, Joe Edwards, conceived it in 1997. His mission was to revitalize the Delmar Loop, and he succeeded. Among other awards, St. Louis Magazine dubbed Edwards the “Duke of Delmar” in 2013 for his efforts. Edwards opened Blueberry Hill, a bar and music club, in 1972 and founded the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1988. Edwards opened hotels, restaurants, a bowling alley and the Pageant, a concert nightclub. He also renovated the 1924-vintage Tivoli Theater.
In short, with all the improvements Edwards had made in the neighborhood, it seemed like a streetcar would enhance the Delmar Loop as a showcase for locals and tourists, and it appeared that the idea could not miss.