Auto Replaces Trolley

Once hard surface roads were built, the automobile bettered the interurban’s offer of utility and personal freedom. After all, Henry Ford was making it possible to buy one. Nationally, miles of track fell every year after 1917; the number of new passenger interurban cars built dropped from 1,000 in 1910 to 128 in 1919.

The interurban was destroyed by the Depression when companies could no longer afford the maintenance expenses. In 1932, a bridge over the Great Miami River, near Dayton collapsed. The Dayton and Troy Electric Railway, which owned the bridge, had no money to replace it, so the route was abandoned. The Western Ohio Railway stop serving Shelby County the same year.

'Downtown' segment written in October, 1998 by Sherrie Casad-Lodge 

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