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Volume 055-1 - January 2001 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
NCHS Bulletin January 2001
brook that led to the car barn, located behind
what is now (2001) the B&C Hardware store.
ig cf & ’ The barn was large enough to hold all four cars
m= Fis a and in the rear of the barn were located two 200em
7 1 i horsepower generators, which provided the electric power for the trolleys.
There is an excellent 12-minute video tape at
the Video History Museum (in Grass Valley’s
Memorial Park) which discusses the trolley
operation and shows in detail the route that the
trolley followed. The route is depicted with pictures of yesteryear and today.
Four cars were purchasd for the operation.
They each carried 44 passengers. 32 passengers
Ss = ——— een mers a. could be seated in the enclosed center section and
Trolley in front of the National Exchange Hotel in Nevada six more at each end of the car on an Opes bench.
City. (Searls Historical Library photo.) Each car was 36 feet long and weighed 28 tons
when empty. According to Mr. Best, the car boTalk; thence along the northwesternly side of the lower dies were built in San Francisco and the trucks built in
Grass Valley and Nevada City Turnpike to the southSaint Louis, Missouri.
erly boundary line of the corporate limits of the City There were three deaths associated with the trolley
of Nevada. operation. The first fatality was that of Mr. Robert Holland,
The franchise also specified that the price for any one-way who was struck by a trolley car and died on March 21,
distance along the line could not exceed fifteen cents. Local 1909. On May 13, 1915, the second fatality occurred when
fares, that is fares within city limits, were five cents, and Mr. Richard Noell was struck by an electric car as he was
were unchanged during the life of the line. It is interesting leaving his home. Ironically, Mr. Noell had given permisto note that Gerald Best’s book, Nevada County Narrow sion to the traction company to cross his land in the original
Gauge, contains an advertisement for the 1887 agricultural franchise. One of the more dramatic accidents resulting ina (™
fair in which the narrow gauge railroad fare from Grass fatality involved Mr. Samuel Avery. In the 1911 Fourth of
Valley or Nevada City to Glenbrook Park was listed as 25 July parade, Mr. Avery was riding on a float in the seat of
cents, and the fare from city to city was 50 cents, a considhonor when it was hit broadside by a trolley car. Mr. Avery,
erable sum in those days. the oldest fireman in the county, was thrown to the ground
The route of the trolley line followed the directions of the franchise. The track ran from Boston
Ravine (at the lower end of Mill
Street in Grass Valley) to Broad
Street and Pine in Nevada City. At
Town Talk, the highest point in
the trip, the tracks led through a
tunnel. Occasionally, when traffic
was heavy with all cars in operation, as the trolley approached
Town Talk the passengers might
have to get out and help push the
trolley up the hill.
When the trolley first went into
operation the Nevada City
managers insisted that before the
trolley could pass over the Broad
Street bridge at the Plaza, the
bridge would have to be
strengthened.
There was a spur line in GlenMill Street, Grass Valley. Trolley No. 1 advertises the Criterion Moving
Picture Theatre. (Searls Historical Library photo.)