Streetcars of Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz, CA
Posted by: 
DougK
N 36° 57.188 W 122° 02.237
10S E 585712 N 4090105
This sign tells the story of the Historic Streetcars of Santa Cruz.
Waymark Code: WM9P5R
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/12/2010
Views: 2
Two axles from old streetcars are mounted on two old iron rails at the northwest intersection of Woodrow Avenue & West Cliff Drive. A sign tells the story of the
Historic Streetcars of Santa Cruz.
The wheels displayed here are the remains of an extensive streetcar system that once served Santa Cruz and the surrounding area. The earliest lines, beginning in 1875, relied on horse drawn cars. Street car service started being electrified during the 1890s. By 1926, all of the streetcars of Santa Cruz had been replaced by motorized buses.
Many of the wider streets in Santa Cruz are a legacy os the streetcar system. Streets such as Woodrow Avenue, Cayuga Street and later, Morrissey Boulevard were originally constructed with center median strips for streetcar tracks. Today, some of these streets retain these medians, but not the tracks.
The map shows the routes of some of the historic streetcar lines, which were operated by two different companies later consolidated to one company called Union Traction. At one time there were three companies; a horse drawn line on Pacific Avenue; another on Soquel; and the city's first electric street cars on the West Side running to the beach.
These streetcar wheels were found in 2005 during construction on a Laurel Street water main.