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| Chicago's
third elevated railroad franchise was awarded to the Metropolitan West
Side Elevated Railroad Company on 7 April 1892. The franchise permitted
the company, popularly known either as the "Met" or the "Polly
L," the right to construct a four-branch elevated railroad system
between downtown Chicago and the western city limits.
Initial plans for the railroad called for the construction of a four-track, east-west main line generally along Congress Street from the west side of downtown to a point just west of Ashland Avenue on the city's west side. From there, the Met was slated to branch off in three directions. The Garfield Park branch was to follow the trajectory of the main line and and continue westward to the city limits. The Douglas Park branch, meanwhile, would proceed southward along Marshfield Avenue (just west of Ashland) to 21st Street and then turn west and continue to the city limits. Finally, the Logan Square branch was to head northward along Marshfield Avenue to Milwaukee Avenue and then turn northwest and follow Milwaukee to the city limits. A fourth branch, the Humboldt Park branch, was to run along North Avenue from the western city limits to it junction with the Logan Square branch near Robey Avenue. Construction of the track structure moved along at a remarkably swift pace. During the summer of 1893, most of the main-line and Garfield Park track was completed. By the following summer, only the drawbridge across the Chicago River and short segments of the Logan Square and Douglas Park branches had yet to be completed. Regular train service on the Metropolitan West Side Elevated was inagurated on 6 May 1895, about three years after the city's first elevated railroad, the Chicago and South Side Railroad, had begun service between downtown and Jackson Park. Initial service was limited to the Logan Square branch, with service to the other branches being gradually implemented during the course of the summer of 1895. 
Marshfield Avenue Station, Metropolitan Elevated, ca. 1910 Total construction costs for the Met topped $16 million and left the backers of the railroad heavily bonded. Property acquisition costs had, at $5 million, been higher than expected. Worse yet, passenger revenues had not lived up to initial expectations. Since many of the areas served by the Met remained sparsely populated, ridership was not especially heavy in its first few years of operation. Those who did live within walking distance of a Met station often found streetcars to be a convenient alternative to the elevated in the days before widespread automobile congestion. Competition from the Lake Street 'L', which closely paralleled the Met's Garfield Park branch, also held down ridership. Within two years, the company was running short of cash. In 1897, the Met was placed into receivership and began to restructure its finances. Having recovered from its early financial troubles, the Met entered a period of financial stability and slow but steady expansion. The opening of the Loop elevated structure in 1897 enabled the Met to abandon its cramped Franklin Street terminal and provide its customers better service to downtown Chicago. During the 1900s and 1910s, the Douglas Park branch was incrementally extended from its initial terminus at Western Avenue to as far as Oak Park Avenue in suburban Berwyn. The Garfield Park branch, meanwhile, was extended through Oak Park and all the way west to the DesPlaines River where it connected with the Aurora, Elgin, & Chicago interurban line. These extensions opened up several major new passenger markets for the Met. The enormous Western Electric plant, one of the city's largest employers, was located within a few blocks of the Kenton Avenue station on the Douglas Park extension. As for the Garfield Park branch, its extension provided access to the large cemeteries and picnic groves along the DesPlaines River and thus helped the railroad increase its weekend ridership. More importantly, expansion encouraged real estate developers to construct new housing subdivisions along the Met's right-of-way, thereby considerably increasing the railroad's ridership base. With the completion of the last segment of the Douglas Park branch in 1924, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad reached its greatest extent: sixty-four stations and five rail yards spread along roughly twenty-two miles of double- and four-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, West Siders utilized the Met not only to commute to and from their jobs downtown, on the near West Side, or at the enormous Western Electric plant, 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 Metropolitan West Side elevated:
In 1911, under the leadership of electric utility tycoon Samuel Insull, all of Chicago's elevated railroads, including the Metropolitan West 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. West-siders no longer had to pay a second fare when transferring from a Met train to one bound for the city's north or south side. The old Met 'L' remained the backbone of west-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, parts of the Logan Square and Douglas Park branches, as well as the entire length of the Humboldt Park branch, have been closed and largely dismantled. During the early 1960s, most of the main-line track and the Garfield Park branch were demolished and replaced by a new rapid-transit line located in the median of the Congress Street (Eisenhower) Expressway. The remaining Douglas Park branch, now over one-hundred years old, is scheduled to be rebuilt over the next few years. Internet Resources Photograph: "Man standing in front of the West 18th Street elevated station," Sept. 1904 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Canal Street elevated railroad station, with a train moving on the tracks," 1907 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway Company elevated bridge with train crossing," Feb. 1911 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Metropolitan Elevated Line station at South Laramie Street (formerly 52nd Place)," 1912 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Metropolitan Terminal," Fifth Avenue near Jackson, 1913 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Elevated train wreck at Marshfield Avenue," 1929 [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: 14
December 1997 -
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