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| Chicago's
South Side elevated railroad, formally known as the Chicago and South
Side Rapid Transit Company, was organized in 1888 by a group of eastern
capitalists who hoped to enhance their fortunes by providing affordable
train service between Chicago and the Indiana state line.
Hoping to avoid the difficulties often incurred with obtaining enough frontage consent signatures from businesses and homeowners to permit the construction of the elevated above public thoroughfares, promoters of the South Side project opted to follow alleyways instead. While this sidestepped one problem, it presented another one. Many of the South Side's alleys were too narrow to provide a double-track railroad alignment. Promoters, therefore, had to make costly purchases of property along their proposed right-of-way and debts for the unbuilt railroad soared. Despite these financial difficulties, construction of the elevated track structure began in early 1890 and proceeded north and south from 25th Street, just east of State Street. Not long thereafter, an international committee selected Jackson Park as the site of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. The announcement prompted the elevated's board of directors to rechart the southern alignment of the railroad in the hopes of reaping huge profits by carrying fairgoers directly between downtown and the exposition grounds. Plans were quickly drawn up for an extension of the elevated eastward from Calumet Avenue along 63rd Street, over the Illinois Central railroad tracks, and into Jackson Park. Most of the land along 63rd Street was still vacant in 1890, so the elevated company faced little opposition from nearby property owners. Regular train service on the Chicago and South Side Railroad, or Alley 'L' as it soon became known, was inaugurated on 6 June 1892. Initially, service was provided only as far south as 39th Street, with service being extended as construction proceded southward. As opening day of the Columbian Exposition approached, the pace of construction along the 63rd Street stretch of the railroad quickened. Service was extended as far east as Dorchester Avenue one week before the fair opened, but service directly into Jackson Park was delayed until three weeks later. Patronage on the Alley 'L' soared during the 1890s, and the company responded by opening additional branches to serve even greater numbers of South Siders. Planning for four new branches to the main line began in 1903. The first of these to be completed was the Normal Park branch, which debuted in May of 1907, and the associated Englewood branch along West 63rd Street, which was completed in July of the same year. Just a few months later, in September of 1907, the Kenwood branch opened. And on 8 April 1908, direct service to the enormous Chicago Stockyards was inaugurated, complete with five separate stations within the boundaries of the Stockyards. As part of this expansion program, the board of directors also decided to add, at great expense, a third track between 43rd and 12th Streets in order to provide express train service and increase the overall efficiency of the ever-expanding transit system. Construction on the express track began in 1903 and was completed in 1907. Conversion from steam to electric motive power in 1898 was another major improvement during this period. With the completion of the Stockyards branch, the South Side elevated reached the greatest extent of its service: forty-five stations and four rail yards spread along roughly twelve miles of double- and triple-track right-of-way. As ridership continued to increase during the 1900s and 1910s, large apartment buildings and dense business and entertainment districts built up alongside the elevated. By the 1920s, South Siders utilized the Alley 'L' not only to commute to and from their jobs downtown or in the Stockyards, but also to do their shopping and spend a night on the town. Here's just a small selection of the excitement that was available within walking distance of the South Side elevated:
In 1911, under the leadership of electric utility tycoon Samuel Insull, all of Chicago's elevated railroads, including the South Side 'L', were unified to form the Chicago Elevated Railroads. The consolidation of the elevated had much to do with the public's growing desire to transfer between separate elevated railroads without having to pay a second fare to do so. Beginning in November of 1913, passengers could, for the first time, travel between any two elevated stations within the city limits for a single five-cent fare. Consolidation of the elevated system also enabled the introduction of express crosstown service between the North Side and the South Side elevated's Jackson Park and Englewood branches. The old Alley 'L' remained the backbone of South Side transportation throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but the public's increased reliance on the automobile and changes in where Chicagoans lived and worked diminished its importance during the postwar period. Since then, the Normal Park, Kenwood, and Stockyards branches have been closed and dismantled. During the early 1990s, the remaining right-of-way, nearing its one-hundredth year of service, was temporarily closed and completely rebuilt. Internet Resources Photograph: "Twenty-second Street Station Elevated Train Station lobby," 1907 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Elevated railway extension at Union Stockyards," 1907 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Elevated railroad stairway at Stony Island where a man was killed," 1908 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Wreck on southside elevated train at 43rd Street," 1908 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Elevated train on its track near 40th Street," 1908 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Kavanaugh's Place, scene of a bomb explosion at East 63rd Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue," 1910 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Kavanaugh's Place, scene of a bomb explosion at East 63rd Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue, view from the elevated tracks," 1910 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Three boys standing amid rubbish in an alley in the Near South Side," 1915 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Passengers sitting on an open window elevated train car on the Jackson Park branch," Nov. 1915 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Guard on the first open window elevated train car on the Jackson Park Branch," Nov. 1915 [Library of Congress] Suggested Reading · Bruce G. Moffat, The 'L': The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit System, 1888-1932 (Central Railfans Association, 1995). · David M. Young, Chicago Transit: An Illustrated History (Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1998). |
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Page authored: 3 May
1997 -
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