For 74 years this transit railway carried passengers to downtown jobs, to University of Minnesota classes, and to picnics and concerts on the shores of Lake Harriet.
Steam passenger trains of the Minneapolis, Lyndale & Minnetonka Railway first reached this station from downtown Minneapolis in 1880. Called the "motor line," the railway was extended to Excelsior in 1882.
The Minneapolis Street Railway Company, organized by Thomas Lowry in 1875, purchased the line in 1887 and converted it to electric streetcar operation in 1891. From the Linden Hills terminus, streetcar service was extended to Lake Minnetonka in 1906, serving Morningside, Hopkins, Deephaven, Excelsior, Tonka Bay, and Big Island Park. Local "Como-Harriet" cars operated to St. Paul via Como Avenue from branches built along Xerxes and France avenues in Minneapolis.
Lowry combined his Minneapolis Street Railway Company with the St. Paul City Railway in 1893 to form the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. Before the streetcar system was abandoned on June 19, 1954, it operated 523 miles of streetcar lines in the cities and suburbs and built 1,240 cars in its own shops, including cars No. 1300 and 265.
With the help of the Minneapolis Parks & Recreation Board, the Minnesota Historical Society, and many friends, the Minnesota Transportation Museum reopened this section of the "Como-Harriet" line in 1971 as a living memorial to a fine street railway system. The line was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 17, 1977.
[MTM and Twin City Lines logos]
Erected by the Minnesota Transportation Museum, Inc., 1981
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