AT THE END OF THEIR TRIP. - The San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California · Sunday, September 22, 1895
Much has been written about Carville. I am not telling a new story, here, but there is some linked research and newspaper clippings that add a bit to the history, and make the story more relatable; places, people, names. This article hints at the future Carville, the community built of old horse-drawn street car bodies in the dunes near Ocean Beach. At the time of this writing, Carville was not yet a thing. Search the web for "Carville," to see much more about this quaint piece of San Francisco history. This article represents a cultural change resulting from a technological change; the change-over from horse-drawn trolley cars to electric trolley cars. The old horse cars couldn't be converted, and had to be discarded. I've transcribed and researched this article to tell a piece of a larger story. It will involve Joseph Leggett, Margaret "Minnie" Le Long, Robert H. Fitzgerald and his wife, Ida F. (Wells) Fitzgerald, the Falcon Bicycle Club, "Curly Bill" Gerhardt and maybe more. I'm letting my curiosity lead me. The next few blog posts will relate to this one, as does the previous blog post. Enjoy.
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Where Some of the Old Cars Have Gone to. |
AT THE END OF THEIR TRIP.
The Last Fare Rung Up and the Old Cars Stopped for Good.
Some of the Queer Uses to Which These Out-of-Date Vehicles Have Been Put,
BOTH ON LAND AND ON SEA.
Playhouses, Shoe Stores, Private Homes, Houseboats, and Even Bathhouses on the Beach.
"Horse-cars to sell, cheap," is not an advertisement that would appeal very strongly to the person of ordinary wants and requirements. Even the woman who haunts the Monday-morning bargain sales would hesitate a long time before she purchased even the most fin-de-siecle of horsecars at the most extraordinary bargain. It isn't exactly the sort of thing she could hang up in her closet, or tuck away in her bureau drawer. It is adapted to the principle of alteration and "making over," but she would hardly appreciate that fact at first glance.
To the unthinking mind a horse-car has but one use. When it has served its purpose and worn out its usefulness in that particular field there seems to be nothing left for it to do but disappear.
Mr. Vining is not of that opinion, however. One day he discovered that his power houses were becoming filled with strange looking vehicles, innocent of dummies, with dashboards and, visor-like projections at both ends. There was nothing the matter with them only they were old-fashioned. They had been discarded for others of newer make and more sprightly appearance.
Mr. Vining put an advertisement in the paper. Then he sat down and waited.
Mr. C. A. Hooper read that advertisement the next day. Mr. Hooper is not one of the unthinking persons. Besides that he had two little girls. One of the little girls was going to have a birthday in a very few days. Mr. Hooper didn't say anything when he read that advertisement, but the thought popped into his head, "What a fine playhouse one of those old cars would make." Then he went down and interviewed Mr. Vining and for two or three days afterwards he went around with a very big secret on his conscience.
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| The Hooper Children's Playhouse |
But it all came out on the morning of the birthday, when all of Ida Hooper's little friends came to see her new playhouse, the queerest and most delightful one in all San Francisco. There it stood, out in the back garden, an old Mission-street car, painted red and still announcing its destination as "Woodward's Gardens," just as it had done for so many years. It looked as though it had lost its way, but was perfectly contented, as it was still engaged in its old occupation of making children happy. The wheels had been taken off and it had been propped up with wooden supports, close to an ivy-covered fence and out of sight of the street. Inside a transformation had been wrought. A new floor had been laid and covered with fresh clean matting. The seats had been removed and a board wainscoating put in their place. Each window was curtained with white muslin curtains. In the further end of the playhouse stood a tiny stove.
Now these two sisters have gone to Alameda for the summer and they want another car for another purpose. They think if a discarded car could make such an ideal playhouse, that it would be better still as a bathhouse down by the beach. Mr. Vining has a great many more cars, and so perhaps they will get their bathhouse, because Mr. Hooper hasn't said no.
But there were other people who read Mr. Vining's advertisement and saw in it the means of filling their wants and necessities.
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| Milton Lee's Shops |
Milton Lee is a shoemaker, but rents are dear and cars are cheap, so he has set up business in an old yellow and white Montgomery-street car. He has located himself on the extreme edge of a vacant lot on the corner of Sacramento street and Central avenue. One of the seats serves as a cobbler's bench and as seats for customers. The seat on the opposite side has been knocked. A long row of shoes and boots of assorted sizes occupies this bench. The windows are decorated with modest reminders that "Repairing is neatly done within." Mr. Lee's shop is still on wheels, so some morning when he goes to his work he may find that his store has disappeared in the night.
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| A Real Estate Office |
Out on Elizabeth street and Hoffman avenue Jacob Heyman, the real estate man, has opened a real estate office in an old North Beach and Mission car. The seats have been knocked out some tables put in for counters and a couple of cane-bottom chairs provided for prospective buyers. When the neighborhood becomes more thickly settled, Mr. Hayman intends to put up a building, but just at present he thinks a horse car is as good a real estate office as any one could want.
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| Coffee House at the Beach |
Two old Valencia-street cars have been lying in the sand at the end of the car line at the Beach for some time. Some one bought them for a speculation. Mayor Sutro rebought them for a bigger speculation. Now they are to be opened as a coffee saloon, with sandwiches and other refreshments, if desired. This coffee saloon will especially look to the Sunday patronage and early bicycle riders. The cars are to be placed end to end, with the two meeting platforms dispensed with. A few tables will be placed inside, but the principle business will be done by opening the windows on one side and passing the refreshments out to the waiting multitude.
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| Carl Stahl, gripman in the
San Francisco, California, City Directory, 1898
at 1442 21st Ave |
Carl Stahl was a conductor, and so there seemed nothing out of the way to him
in taking up his dwelling in a car. He had a lot, way out in the sandhills
beyond the Olympic Club athletic grounds. He was tired of paying room rent,
and he couldn't afford to build a home. So he bought three cars and did some carpentering, and now he has a home. He has a bedroom and a kitchen and a
sitting-room, and is independent of landladies and house agents. The wind
blows very strong out in that neighborhood, and the people in the vicinity
expect some night that Mr. Stahl will be blown entirely away, each car taking
a different direction. Even now the cars groan and creak in the wind, the sand
drifts in the windows and the ventilators at the top, and the rain leaks in
the roof, but Stahl doesn't care, for he has a home of his own.
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| Mr. Stahl's House |
Mr. James McNeill of Tiburon has the queerest ark in all Belvedere. It is made of four old Market-street cars, all joined together and floating on one huge raft. Early in the spring Mr. McNeill carted his bargain, they were a bargain, four for $38. over on the Tiburon ferry. People who were crossing at the time wondered if Belvedere was going to run horse cars for the summer guests. But no one suspected the truth until Mr. McNeill began to knock down partitions and drive nails in a furious fashion. Down on the beach is a varied assortment of dash boards, doors, windows, some superfluous roofing and an assortment of wheels that were not found necessary for the comfort of ark life. Outside the cars look the same as when they were traveling up Market street on a track, the same colors and signs decorate their sides as of yore. But inside a transformation has been accomplished, and the furnishing and general appearance is the same as any ark. Two families live in this ark - Mr. McNeill and his wife, a brother and several children.
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| McNeills Tiburon Houseboat. |
Mr. A. Miller bought six cars and announced that he was going to use them for bath-houses. The people at North Beach have been looking for him anxiously, but he hasn't appeared as yet.
Formerly, when old cars were offered for sale, they were immediately bought up by companies in interior towns and were put to use on their line. Now the interior towns have trolly lines and are importing brand new cars of their own and have no use for San Francisco's discarded ones. Some of this present lot have gone in that way. Three were shipped to the Electric Power Company of Sacramento, one went to Fresno, and quite a number to San Jose.
The largest shipment made was that of twelve cars sent to the city of
Guatemala on the last steamer. They will be used as mule cars. The cars chosen
were from different lines but all of them closed, not an open car among them.
The California Street Company is selling some of their old cars with dummy
attachment. They are principally going to interior towns. They are easier to
sell than those of the Market Street Company, because they are not so
old-fashioned.
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