Memphis and Lake View Trolley

 

Memphis & Lakeview

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from February 2008 Memphis Buff)

“The Mississippi Valley route will have another delightful excursion to Lakeview today. The trains will leave at 9 o'clock a.m. And 2 p.m., and return at 7 o'clock p.m. Lakeview is one of the prettiest places in this section of the country, and nothing will be left undone to make these excursions pleasant to all who may attend. Croce Bros. fine string band will furnish music, and dancing will be free to all. To make these excursions popular and and to give all a chance to enjoy them the fare has been placed at the low rate of forty cents for the round trip; children half price.”  

Daily Appeal 7/14/1885

“The Lake View Traction Company made a formal application to the county court yesterday for a franchise for its line to Clarksdale, and the matter was referred to the railroad committee of the county court, which is to report on it later.

The petition of the traction company was for the privilege of locating and maintaining a double track line for the period of thirty-five years, together with the poles and other equipment over the following streets, roads and avenues:

Orleans street from Axie avenue to Trigg avenue, on Miller Place from Axie avenue to Kerr avenue, on McMillan avenue to Trigg, on Axie avenue from Lauderdale to Orleans, on Trigg avenue  from Orleans to Lauderdale, on Lauderdale from Axie to Kerr, on Prospect  avenue from Union Railway to Old Prospect pavilion.

The petition asks a right to cross all streets, avenues and roads between Memphis and the state line between Mississippi and Tennessee”

Commercial Appeal 7/27/1906

“The Lake View Traction Company inaugurates its first passenger schedule today when the line will be thrown open from New South Memphis to Lakeview, a distance of eleven miles.

The present terminus of the upper portion of the line is at the south end of the Suburban-South Memphis car line. Lakeview cars will leave there each hour from 8 o'clock a.m. To 9 o'clock p.m. Daily. Coming this way, the schedules run from 7 o'clock a.m to 8 o'clock p.m.

The company has four motor cars and four trailers on the line, and estimates that these will for a time accommodate the passengers. The fare will be 20 cents from New South Memphis, or 25 cents from the city proper, agains 35 cents , the old charge of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroad. The schedule from one end of the line to the other call for about 35 minutes, which the company will later shorten.

The regular stations between the termini are Brooks avenue, Raines avenue, Horn Lake road and lower Horn Lake road.Officials said that the line would be extended at once to Wall, Miss., and within six months the extension of the line into Memphis proper would be begun. Until both shall have been completed, the company will probably not attempt  to do any freight business.

Commercial Appeal 11/27/1910

1916 Map

I have known for years that at one time a trolley ran from Memphis to Lake View, MS.  I had heard that Lakeview Road through Whitehaven was originally the route of the trolley line and had seen the overpass on South Third Street which was said to have carried the trolley over the highway. A cousin had told me that a gravel road under the Illinois Central tracks at Prospect Avenue beside Cane Creek was at one time the roadbed of the Lakeview Trolley.

I had all this filed away in my mind as just some more useless knowledge until I was the high bidder on E-bay of a 1916 map of Southwest Shelby County. The first thing I noticed was the:”Lakeview  Electric” running southward from where the “Memphis and State Line” crossed Cane Creek.

I decided I would try to document the path of the Lakeview Trolley from its beginning at Prospect Avenue to Lake View Mississippi. I pulled up the TDOT map of Shelby County and overlaid it with the 1916 map.

What I had always heard  was true. The trolley line began at Prospect Avenue and lined up  with Lakeview Road all the way to just beyond the  IC's Grenada

Right of Way going under IC Tracks at Prospect

District track. At Shelby Drive it lined up with Goodwill Road. It turned west at Hewlett Road then turned southwest paralleling South Third Street all the way to Lakeview, lining up with a couple of present day roads, Tully Road  and yet another Lakeview Road.

Next I pulled up the area in Google and traced the route on the aerial map and printed a hard copy. I then grabbed my camera and headed out.

Google Map

 I had already had a picture of the bridge at Prospect, so I headed to the North end of Lakeview Road in the Bellbrook Industrial Park on Brooks Road. Lakeview Road was extended north of Brooks Road when the industrial park was built in 1974.  As expected, I didn't find anything in this area. There was nothing north of the industrial park except Interstate 55 and the Nonconnah Creek bottoms.

The right of way between Nonconnah Creek and Brooks Road was deeded to the Lake View Traction Company by Napolean Hill on August 24, 1908, with the stipulation  that  “said Traction Company shall have its line on said strip, and have cars in actual operation on said line between Memphis and Lake View, MS within 2

South Haven Heights Plat

years”.  Presumably, an extension was granted as service wasn't inagurated until November of 1910.  I then headed south on Lakeview Road, retracing the route of the  Lake View Traction Company's line.

Interurban Haven Heights Subdivision Plat

Goodwill Road

Most subdivisions along Lakeview Road were laid out when the trolley was in operation. The South Haven Heights Subdivision's original plat dated 1927 shows “Lakeview Boulevard” running alongside the trolley line between Brooks Road and McCorkle (now Graves)  Road on the west side of the right of way. A corrected plat dated 1937 no longer shows the trolley line and shows the former right of way of Lakeview Blvd being added to the adjacent lots. Appropriately named Interburban Heights Subdivision lies just to the south of South Haven Heights and its plat shows the trolley line going over the Illinois Central's Grenada District line.  

When I was a teenager in Whitehaven the bridge over  the IC's track was a wooden trestle type bridge. It has since been replaced by a concrete bridge

 For the about the next mile and a half any trace of the trolley line has been obliterated by development.

Just east of the intersection of Horn Lake and Shelby Drive the roadbed of the Lake View Traction Company re-emerges as Goodwill Road. It extends in a north eastern direction for a distance of about 2000 feet although only about the first 1000 feet of the roadway is paved.

On the other side Of Shelby Drive the right of way cuts across the corner of the intersection with Horn Lake Road and then becomes  Hewlett Road on the other side of Horn Lake. This area west of Horn Lake Road was developed in 1910 as the Acklena Subdivision. The plat of this  development shows the trolley line down what is now Hewlett Road. A later plat of the land surrounding the Acklena Subdivision shows the trolley line turning southwest about 700 feet west of its intersection with what is now South Haven Road. 

Aklena Plat

The trolley line right of way becomes Tully Road just beyond where it made the turn to the southwest. It crosses Weaver Road (Lower Horn Lake Road on the plat) and extends all the way to Holmes Road. Northeast of Weaver Road it appears to have become private property as there is a gate across the road while to the southwest it is a narrow road strewn with used tires and trash.

 Another Lakeview Road extends south of Holmes Road where Holmes intersects with Tully.  At first I thought that this other Lakeview Road was again the old roadbed. It doesn't align with Tully very well and a little investigation showed that the trolley line actually ran between Lakeview and Acklen Roads south of Holmes. A 1934 plat shows that what is now Lakeview Road was once named Old Horn Lake.  Acklen Road on the east side of the R.O.W. suggests a connection with this subdivision and the Acklena Subdivision a little northwest of here. This last piece of identifiable roadbed is now a turnip green patch.  

The Lake View Traction line continued in a southwesterly direction, crossing the Tennessee-Mississippi state line and ending at Lake View Ms.  Before Highway 61 was widened a number of

Tully Road

years ago there was a wooden trestle crossing the highway near its  present intersection with State Line Road. I had always thought that this trestle carried the trolley over the highway, but have since heard that the opposite might be true, that in fact that Old Highway 61 went over the trolley line at that point. Topographical evidence of the trolley lines route ends a little north of this location, so its possible that either is true.   

As early as 1885 Lake View Mississippi was a  destination for Memphians in search of fun and entertainment.  Lake View featured a 50 room hotel owned by a Captain A. P. Montana, an artisian well, a railroad station with a full time station agent who lived on the second floor of the station and five dance halls.

The hotel was located to the west of the Y&MV tracks facing the lake. Adjacent to the hotel and built out over the water was a large general store with a dance hall overlooking the lake. At ground level on the lake bank, row boats were offered for rent. There was a sand beach on the north end of the lake.

In June of 1886 Louis Fritz opened “Horn Lake Park” at Lake View. The amusement park featured concrete walks, a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, ice cream parlor and a spacious theater complete with an orchestra pit and stage for vaudeville acts and theater productions.

Louis Fritz also operated Fritz Fisheries, a commercial fishing operation in both North Horn Lake and South Horn Lake.  Large  seine nets were used to catch buffalo, carp and catfish, which were shipped to Memphis and other markets.

Somewhat of a mystery exists in regards to the trolley and Lake View, Mississippi. The  announcement  in the June, 1886,  Commercial Appeal proclaiming the opening of the “Louis Fritz Horn Lake Park” states, “Memphis may reach the resort via either the inter-urban line or the Y&MV Railroad.”

In an account  in the Memphis Press Scimitar, Wayne Garrett  recalls visiting the park at the age of seven. “I used to go with my parents to Central Station at Main and Calhoun and board a trolley car. It ran all the way to Lake View, Mississippi at the break neck speed of of 30 to 35 mph. It only made one stop along the way and the fare was 75 cents roundtrip, kids 25 cents. I think it only ran three times a day  and the line was built by someone who visualized Lake View as a resort area for Memphians in those days.

 “I remember several hot summer Sundays, about 1 P.M., when we would board the car and would be pulled from Central Station by a steam engine to somewhere around Third and Mallory, then be switched to a trolley line that ran to Lake View. The car was was open and I would sit on the front seat behind the motorman.”

“At Lake View there was a large building called “Fritz Place”. It had everything. I remember people eating, drinking, smoking, dancing, gambling, fishing, but my best recollection is the good food, boats, swimming,and the playground.”

The above description, as well as the the mention of an “inter-urban line” in 1886, does not agree with the Lake View Traction Company line herein described. It suggests that there was a second, earlier trolley line to Lake View. That may be a story for another time.

In any case, The Lake View Traction Company ran its first trolley to Lake View in 1910.  On January 23,1912, the company went into receivership and on October 16, 1912 was purchased by the Memphis Interburban Company which later became the Memphis and Lakeview Railway, a subsidiary of the Memphis Street Railway Company. Service was finally abandoned in 1928.

The Lake View Traction Company never constructed lines north of its terminal on Prospect Avenue and never extended its lines south of Lake View and quite probably never hauled any freight.  More than likely it was killed by better roads and the automobile which allowed peolple access to other places that railroads and interburbans did not reach.