This photo shows a Toledo and Monroe Railway interurban car stopped in front of the company’s powerhouse at Elm Avenue and Monroe Street in Monroe, Michigan.
The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library record describes the image as a Toledo and Monroe interurban railway car with employees, taken in Monroe in about 1900. A related archive record identifies the powerhouse itself at the same intersection in 1901 and credits photographer Wilbur E. Hague.
Powerhouses like this one kept electric railways moving before rural and regional electric service was common. The Toledo and Monroe line was part of the interurban boom that linked city streets, small towns and lakefront destinations by rail.
What do you know or remember about Monroe’s old interurban lines?
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