Kewanee
Galesburg & Kewanee
Electric Railway
#7 in a Kuhlman builders
photo. When incorporated, the company proposed building a 31-mile system
between Kewanee and Galesburg. The Kewanee local system began operating
on July 9, 1903 (and expanded over the next few years), and the 8.3 mile
interurban line southwest to Galva began operating on December 6, 1906.
However, nothing further was built, and by August 1923 the company was
placed into receivership and service suspended on October 20, 1923.
The Kewanee Public Service
Company (KPSC) took over everything and reconstructed all of the
local streetcar trackage, Interurban service resumed on September
3, 1924 and local Kewanee service resumed on November 29, 1924 after six
single-truck second-hand Birney streetcars were received from Detroit.
On September 26, 1926, the North American Light & Power Company purchased
the KPSC.
Automobiles, concrete highways
and isolation doomed the interurban line, and the last car operated on
December 31, 1932. Decreased revenue because of the Deptression resulted
in the local Kewanee streetcars being replaced with buses on December 15,
1935.
Caption data from Stephen
M. Scalzo
Bill Volkmer collection
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