 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Public utility |
| Founded | 1906 |
| Fate | Acquired by Portland Electric Power Company (1924) |
| Headquarters | Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
Key people | Franklin Griffith [1] |
| Products | Electric power, transportation |
The Portland Railway, Light and Power Company (PRL&P) was a railway company and electric power utility in Portland, Oregon, United States, from 1906 until 1924. [2]
A series of mergers of various transportation companies in 1905–1906 [3] culminating in the merger of the Portland Street Railway Company; Oregon Water, Power and Railway Company; and the Portland General Electric Company on June 28, 1906, established the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company (PRL&P). [2] Nearly 200 miles of track and 375 urban and interurban streetcars were thereupon consolidated under a single company. [2] Upon its formation, PRL&P became the only company to operate streetcars within Portland city limits; it also continued to sell electric power. [4] The name, Portland General Electric (PGE), remained in use as a division of PRL&P and, after subsequent reorganizations in 1930 and 1940 [3] eventually PGE became once again fully independent as a power utility company, making PGE in some ways both an ancestor and a descendant of PRL&P.
The company's interurban lines used standard-gauge track, with the exception of the line to Vancouver, Washington, while most of its urban (or "city") lines were narrow-gauge, specifically 3 ft 6 in (1067 mm) gauge. [3] A few lines in the southeast part of the city were standard-gauge, [5] converted from narrow gauge in December 1908 for efficiency, so that they could operate out of PRL&P's Sellwood carbarn, which was closer to the area those lines served but was only equipped for standard-gauge operation. [3] : 129–130
By 1910, PRL&P was a $15 million holding company, having received 43 franchises from the city of Portland, mostly in the form of land grants. [6] It was a monopoly, and "liable to anti-trust action under the Sherman Act." [6] [7] The company only installed safety devices (such as pedestrian bumpers) on its streetcars after "extreme public pressure." [6] While PRL&P installed many public streetlights, the city council complained about the power rates charged to the city. [6]
PRL&P's president, Franklin Griffith, was part of the corruption and graft surrounding Mayor George Luis Baker; Griffith and others paid off Baker's mortgage. [1]
PRL&P was reorganized as the Portland Electric Power Company (PEPCO) on April 26, 1924. [2]
Two former PRL&P streetcar buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Bay E of the West Ankeny Carbarns was listed in 1978, [8] and the Sellwood Division Carbarn Office and Clubhouse was listed in 2002. [9] The company's 1911 hydroelectric facility in Estacada, Oregon, the River Mill Hydroelectric Project, is also listed on the NRHP. [10]
Milwaukie is a city mostly in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States; a very small portion of the city extends into Multnomah County. The population was 20,291 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1847 on the banks of the Willamette River, the city, known as the Dogwood City of the West, was incorporated in 1903 and is the birthplace of the Bing cherry. The city is now a suburb of Portland and also adjoins the unincorporated areas of Clackamas and Oak Grove.
Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.
The Interurban is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 and 1925 and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. The concept spread to countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Poland. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution. Most roads between towns and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between the town and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. By 1930, most interurbans in North America were gone with a few surviving into the 1950s.
The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar that operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in the U.S. state of Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by a group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it for potential future rail transit. Streetcar excursion service began operating on a trial basis in 1987, lasting about three months, and regular operation on a long-term basis began in 1990. The Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society has been the line's operator since 1995.
The Burnside Bridge is a 1926-built bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, carrying Burnside Street. It is the second bridge at the same site to carry that name. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.
The Toronto and York Radial Railway was a transit operator providing services to the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was a subsidiary of the Toronto Railway Company. The company was created by merging four Toronto-area interurban operations. The company was part of the empire of railway entrepreneurs Sir William Mackenzie and Donald Mann which included the Canadian Northern Railway and the parent Toronto Railway Company.
The Yakima Valley Transportation Company was an interurban electric railroad headquartered in Yakima, Washington. It was operator of the city's streetcar system from 1907–1947, and it also provided the local bus service from the 1920s until 1957.
Streetcars or trolley(car)s were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation.
The Mount Hood Railway and Power Company, also known as the Mount Hood Company, initiated hydroelectric development in the Sandy River basin in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1906. Its Bull Run Hydroelectric Project included a powerhouse on the Bull Run River, a tributary of the Sandy River, and a diversion dam on the Little Sandy River, a tributary of the Bull Run River. Water from the dam, which was about 16 feet (4.9 m) high, flowed through a wooden flume about 17,000 feet (5,200 m) long to Roslyn Lake and from there to the powerhouse. The company began using the powerhouse to generate electricity in 1912.
The Oregon Electric Railway Museum is the largest streetcar/trolley museum in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is owned and operated by the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society and is located in Brooks, Oregon, on the grounds of Powerland Heritage Park.
Council Crest Park is a city park in southwest Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Amenities include paved and unpaved paths, a dog off-leash area, picnic tables, public art, a view point, and a wedding site that can be reserved. The 43.51-acre (17.61 ha) park, operated by Portland Parks & Recreation, is open year-round from 5 a.m. to midnight. It was the site of an amusement park from 1907 until 1929.
Cazadero is an unincorporated historic locale in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. Cazadero was a station on the Estacada interurban railway line of the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company (PRL&P) and later Portland Electric Power Company (PEPCO), near where the power plant of the PEPCO-owned Cazadero Dam was located on the Clackamas River.
The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was unique, and it was considered the finest such system in the Pacific Northwest. It was the only major electric interurban railroad converted from steam to electric passenger use. It was also one of few systems using all-steel equipment, and one of the largest 1500-volt systems in the country.
The Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad Company (S.&I.E.R.R.Co.) was an electrified interurban railway operating in Spokane, Washington and vicinity, extending into northern and central Idaho. The system originated in several predecessor roads beginning c. 1890, incorporated in 1904, and ran under its own name to 1929. It merged into the Great Northern Railway and later, the Burlington Northern Railroad, which operated some roads into the 1980s.
The Portland General Electric Company Station "L" Group in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon was a cluster of six industrial buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built between 1910 and 1929 by Portland General Electric (PGE), it was added to the register in 1985. In 1986, PGE gave Station L and 18.5 acres (7.5 ha) of land to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). The Station L turbine is a central feature of OMSI's Turbine Hall. The complex was listed on the National Register in 1985, and was delisted in 2020.
The Portland Railway, Light and Power Sellwood Division Carbarn Office and Clubhouse, also known as Carmen's Clubhouse, in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon, is a former commercial transportation building listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Built in 1910 by the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company (PRL&P), it was added to the register in 2002. The structure was associated with Portland's street railway and interurban system of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The West Ankeny Car Barns Bay E is a former streetcar carbarn in Portland, Oregon, that is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Completed in 1911, it was one of three buildings that collectively made up the Ankeny Car Barns complex of the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company (PRL&P), the owner and operator of Portland's streetcar system at the time. By 1978, the brick building had become the only surviving structure from the Ankeny complex and one of only two surviving remnants of carbarn complexes of the Portland area's large street railway and interurban system of the past, the other being the PRL&P's Sellwood Division Carbarn Office and Clubhouse.
Hawthorne Boulevard is an east–west street in Portland, Oregon and the dividing line between multiple neighborhoods, although "Hawthorne" is often itself considered its own neighborhood. The street stretches from the Willamette River on the west,, and 92nd Avenue on the east. Mount Tabor blocks the street between 60th Street and 72nd Avenue. Hawthorne Boulevard is a principal street west of 50th Avenue and a residential street to the east. The most famous portion of Hawthorne Boulevard is between 29th Avenue and Cesar Chavez Boulevard which serves as a cultural hot spot for Portland's hippie movement. This section of the street is filled with local businesses, boutiques, restaurants, and gift stores, as well as the first Fred Meyer grocery at 36th and Hawthorne, and a bakery at 12th and Hawthorne. It the grocery closed in the 1930s. Hawthorne Boulevard is often compared to Haight Street in San Francisco due to the similar culture of both streets. The street is named for Doctor James C. Hawthorne, a politician and physician. Dr. Hawthorne donated land for the Oregon Hospital for the Insane near the modern day Colonel Summers Park in 1862. The Hospital for the Insane is often called the Hawthorne Asylum, and the street, originally named U Street, took on the moniker Asylum Avenue. The Asylum closed in 1883, and an ordinance was passed to rename the street to Hawthorne Avenue in 1888.
The San Jose Railroads was a street railway operator in San Jose, from 1912 until April 10th, 1938
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