Two Enthusiasts

Beginning in San Francisco in 1873, cable railways spread to nearly every large American city and several overseas. Los Angeles had three systems, the most successful of which began operation on Temple Street in 1886. Frederick Wood and John Fowler, who managed the Temple Street Cable Railway, were responsible for several mechanical innovations that they hoped would be adopted by other lines. To demonstrate these, they kept a section of cable track and conduit above ground, and in the summer of 1892 they posed alongside this section. Unfortunately—but probably not yet obvious to them—by 1892 cable railways were on the verge of being rendered obsolete by Frank Sprague's system of electric traction and thus the demand for mechanical novelty had vanished. Total cable railway mileage nationwide peaked the next year at 305; by the time the Temple Street line was converted to electricity in 1902 the total was down to 100, and ten years after that it was down to 20, nearly all of it on the steep hills of San Francisco. For cable-car enthusiasts like Wood and Fowler, Sprague had spoiled the fun.