Transportation by 1900

In the second half of the 19th century, Chicago was growing very rapidly... and an intricate system of transportation developed ...

Streets Cars/ Street Railroads ...
Street cars, known as street railraods were introduced in 1859.
These were pulled by horses. By 1882, many lines were converted to cable operation. The cable car as an improvement to horsecar service, not as a separate network. Feeder cars pulled by horses were often attached to cable cars to be pulled downtown. Beginning in 1892, electric traction quickly replaced the complicated cable technology, and Chicago's last cable car ran in 1906. It was this system, ultimately switching from streetcars to buses, that solved the problem of transporting hundreds of thousands of daily commuters to work across the vast face of the city.

The "L" or Elevated Railroads ...
The first 'L' began revenue service on June 6, 1892, when a small steam locomotive pulling four wooden coaches with 30 passengers left the 39th Street station of the Chicago & South Side Rapid Transit Railroad and arrived at Congress Street 14 minutes later over tracks still used today by the Green Line.

1892: first L to South side
1895: first L to West side
1900: first L to North side

A major drawback of early 'L' service was that none of the lines entered the central business district. Instead trains dropped passengers at stub terminals on the periphery due to a state law requiring approval by neighboring property owners for tracks built over public streets, something not easily obtained downtown.

This obstacle was overcome by the legendary traction magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes, who went on to play a pivotal role in the development of the London Underground. Yerkes, controlled much of the city's streetcar system, and obtained the necessary signatures through cash and guile, too build a mile-long 'L' over Van Buren Street from Wabash Avenue to Halsted Street.

The Union Loop opened in 1897, greatly increasing the rapid transit system's convenience but at the cost of noisy, obstructed streets, a fact of life in downtown Chicago to this day. Operation on the Yerkes-owned Northwestern Elevated, which built the North Side 'L' lines, began three years later, essentially completing the elevated infrastructure in the urban core although extensions and branches continued to be constructed in outlying areas through the 1920s.