Question: This photo shows the Penn Spring Works band. What do you know about it?
Last week’s answer: The long objects shown at the left of the photo are iron rails that would become tracks for the Syracuse, Lakeside and Baldwinsville Railroad, an electric trolley line that would connect Syracuse to Baldwinsville and eventually extend to the city of Oswego, a distance of 38.5 miles. In its first two years (1896-98) the trolley ran from Syracuse to the Onondaga Lake resorts. The route ended at Stiles, a hamlet near the junction of Jones and Stiles roads.
This photo was taken in spring of 1899 by A. J. Guppy. The rails had just been offloaded from a steam railroad freight car near Lakeland and would be drawn by a team of horses to Stiles and onward toward the village two at a time. Each rail measured 60 feet long and weighed one ton. Steel spikes and cedar cross timbers would keep the track in place. Road crews went in advance cutting and leveling a bed for the new line while other crews prepared the electric system and its infrastructure.
When service between Syracuse and Baldwinsville commenced on Sept. 25, 1899, it opened the door to convenient rapid transit between the city and the village. The trip from Clinton Square to the village took only 20 to 30 minutes. During “work travel times” trolleys ran every 15 minutes; during slower times of the day they ran every half hour or hourly from 6:30 a.m. until midnight. In many ways it was the first crack in rendering Baldwinsville “a bedroom community.” Shoppers, commuters, those running errands and folks seeking entertainment had opportunities never before available.
The speed and frequency of trolley service dealt the death blow to passenger packet boat travel and a severe blow to local steam train travel. Eventually the trolley also met its match. The gasoline-powered engine came on the scene, and now people could travel without keeping to stationary tracks or waterways. Road development was high on the list of desired public improvements. By the end of the 1920s, trolley patrons were dwindling as the numbers of Fords, Dodges, Chevrolets, Oldsmobiles, Maxwells — and over 100 other makes — were seen increasing numbers on America’s roads.
The last passenger trolley passed through Baldwinsville on Jan. 25, 1929. The Syracuse Oswego busline picked up the route the very next morning.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at editor@baldwinsvillemessenger.com or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
